Can AI ever become conscious?

Ashkan Farhadi MD, MS, FACP, FACG [1], [2]

Abstract

Almost 70 years ago, Alan Turing predicted that within half a century, computers would possess processing capabilities sufficient to fool interrogators into believing they were communicating with a human. While his prediction materialized slightly later than anticipated, he also foresaw a critical limitation: machines might never become the subject of their own thoughts, suggesting that computers may never achieve self-awareness. Recent advancements in AI, however, have reignited interest in the concept of consciousness, particularly in discussions about the potential existential risks posed by AI. At the heart of this debate lies the question of whether computers can achieve consciousness or develop a sense of agency—and the profound implications if they do.

Whether computers can currently be considered conscious or aware, even to a limited extent, depends largely on the framework used to define awareness and consciousness. For instance, IIT equates consciousness with the capacity for information processing, while the Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory integrates elements of self-awareness and intentionality into its definition.

This manuscript reviews and critically compares major theories of consciousness, with a particular emphasis on awareness, attention, and the sense of self. By delineating the distinctions between artificial and natural intelligence, it explores whether advancements in AI technologies—such as machine learning and neural networks—could enable AI to achieve some degree of consciousness or develop a sense of agency.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, consciousness, awareness, attention, decision-making, free will, self-awareness

Current Perspectives on Consciousness

Intelligence, both natural and artificial, is inherently tied to the ability to process information, prioritize inputs, and make adaptive decisions. Understanding mental functions provides insights into the evolution of cognitive capabilities and offers potential applications in AI development. Despite extensive study, consciousness remains one of the most intriguing and challenging topics in cognitive science and philosophy. Numerous theories have emerged to explain this enigmatic concept, and the most significant theories are discussed and compared below to provide a comprehensive understanding.

Comparing Different Theories of Consciousness

As summarized in Table 1, the psychoanalytic theory of personality proposed by Freud (1924) was one of the earliest attempts to address human consciousness by postulating a hierarchical division of the mind into conscious and unconscious realms to explain behavior. However, this framework lacked the functional and mechanistic aspects of a true theory of consciousness.

One of the first comprehensive theories of consciousness was the Global Workspace Theory (GWT), introduced by Baars (1988). Drawing inspiration from Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, GWT sought to explain the coexistence of conscious and unconscious processes in the human mind. It conceptualizes the mind as a stage illuminated by a spotlight of attention, where only the information integrated within this "workspace" enters conscious awareness, while the rest remains unconscious. Although the theory posits that information can transition between unconscious and conscious states, it falls short of providing a detailed explanation for the mechanism behind this transition or the permanence of such states.

Over time, the focus of consciousness theories evolved. Initially centered on the integration of information within a specific module of the mind, as proposed in the GWT, newer theories expanded this process to encompass other brain subsystems. The Neuronal Global Workspace Theory (Dehaene, 1998) and Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) illustrate this progression, broadening the scope of information integration. Further advancements were seen in theories such as the Higher-Order Thought (HOT) and Attention Schema Theories, which introduced the pivotal concepts of subjective experience and self-awareness.

An even broader perspective is offered by Integrated Information Theory (IIT), (Tononi, 2016) which suggests that consciousness arises from the integration of any form of information, regardless of the entity. Building upon IIT and GWT, the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) (Farhadi, 2023) further refines this concept by specifying that the integration of information through two distinct mental functions—Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) and Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA)—leads to the emergence of consciousness.

These theories highlight several key distinctions that help differentiate Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Natural Intelligence (NI). By exploring how each framework defines consciousness, we can draw meaningful lines between AI and NI capabilities, particularly in critical areas such as intentionality, self-awareness, and agency.

Can AI be considered conscious?

It is not surprising that the inclusive definition of consciousness proposed by IIT can be readily extended to encompass artificial intelligence (AI). Although other theories of consciousness were primarily developed to model natural intelligence (NI), their definitions could also be adapted to AI. However, the TTC builds upon the foundations of IIT and GWT by emphasizing that the integration of information is indeed central to consciousness. TTC bridges the gap by identifying two specific mental functions—ABCS and DSIA—as essential for consciousness. Since these functions are unique to NI, TTC reserves consciousness as an exclusive property of natural intelligence.

From another perspective, if we adopt a purely materialistic view of the brain—perceiving consciousness as an emergent property of the physical brain, its neurons, and networks—it might appear inevitable that all mental functions, including consciousness, could eventually be replicated in AI systems. However, given the enduring challenges in addressing the hard problem of consciousness as proposed by Chalmers, the author does not foresee any significant advancements in this area in the near future.

Consciousness Versus Awareness

Consciousness is often regarded as a state of mind, whereas awareness is characterized as an experience. While awareness is a necessary condition for consciousness, it is not sufficient on its own. Among the theories of consciousness reviewed in Table 1—except for TTC—awareness and consciousness are often treated synonymously. However, some theories imply a distinction between the two. For instance, the Motivated Emotional Mind theory (Galus, 2020) suggests that the stream of consciousness comprises two components: "executive consciousness" and "reporting consciousness," which correspond to awareness and intention, respectively, as outlined in TTC.

According to TTC, AI cannot be considered either aware or conscious, as it lacks the capacity for intentional attention (DSIA) and the autonomous decision-making processes (ABCS) that are essential for the emergence of consciousness. However, analogous concepts can still be applied to AI. For instance, while AI cannot achieve consciousness, it can exhibit a state akin to being "awake," and though it cannot attain awareness, it can demonstrate "alertness," as will be elaborated in the subsequent sections.

The Conscious/Unconscious Dichotomy of Mind

The division of the mind into conscious and unconscious realms is a significant point of distinction among theories of consciousness. Nearly all theories, except for IIT and TTC, propose that the mind comprises both conscious and unconscious components. Mechanistic models such as Global Workspace (GW), Neuronal GW, and Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) reflect a structure that aligns closely with modern computers. In this analogy, a computer's hard drive represents the unconscious mind, where data exists but is not actively processed, while the random-access memory (RAM) corresponds to the conscious mind, where data is actively processed.

In contrast, IIT eliminates this dichotomy, treating the mind as a unified entity where the level of consciousness is determined by the degree of data integration. On the other hand, TTC views the mind as inherently unconscious. Consciousness, according to TTC, arises only through the interplay of two specific mental functions—ABCS and DSIA—which together constitute the "I." This unique framework underscores why TTC exclusively attributes consciousness to natural intelligence (NI) and excludes artificial intelligence (AI) from possessing consciousness.

The level of consciousness.

One of the key distinctions among theories of consciousness is the concept of degrees, or levels, of consciousness. For instance, humans are often regarded as more conscious than bees, given the significant differences in the volume of integrated information they process. IIT explicitly endorses the idea of graded consciousness, suggesting that consciousness can exist on a spectrum of varying levels. In contrast, TTC takes a fundamentally different approach, asserting that consciousness is an "all-or-none" phenomenon.

Several other theories support the concept of graded consciousness. Jonkisz, Wierzchoń, and Binder (2017) propose dimensions of consciousness that include phenomenal quality, semantic abstraction, physiological complexity, and functional usefulness. Conversely, some scholars challenge this notion, arguing that graded consciousness is either incoherent (Bayne, Hohwy, & Owen, 2016; Carruthers, 2019) or impossible to measure reliably (Birch, Schnell, & Clayton, 2020; McKilliam, 2020). Lee (2022) further suggests that theories of consciousness must implicitly or explicitly adopt the concept of graded consciousness unless they invoke metaphysical constructs such as the soul.

TTC provides a unique perspective by attributing consciousness to the integration of information facilitated by the mental faculty known as "I." According to TTC, consciousness is a byproduct of awareness processes and intention, rather than a property with measurable levels. This theory argues that the concept of graded consciousness conflates the complexity of the content of awareness with the process itself. Whether the subject of awareness is simple or complex, the underlying mechanism remains unchanged. Consequently, TTC rejects the notion of graded consciousness and concludes that AI, regardless of its complexity, cannot achieve consciousness.

This distinction highlights the importance of clarifying how consciousness is defined and measured, especially as AI continues to advance. While some theories allow for a spectrum of "conscious-like" attributes in AI, others firmly delineate consciousness as an exclusively human trait, reinforcing the philosophical and functional boundaries between AI and NI.

Attention: A Neglected Aspect of Consciousness

Attention, a critical yet often underappreciated element of consciousness, involves the selection of information for processing. In NI, attention corresponds to the selection of intelligence for awareness. A similar mechanism can be conceptualized for AI to enhance the efficiency of its information processing. Most theories of consciousness either omit or assume that attention occurs automatically, but if awareness forms the foundation of consciousness, then attention serves as the keystone that supports it.

John Locke provided one of the earliest definitions of attention, describing it as an essential “mode of thought” (Mole, 2009). As summarized in Table 2, Broadbent’s bottleneck theory (1971) was one of the initial attempts to model attention, proposing that information could be filtered before or during processing. This filtering mechanism implies that certain information may never reach awareness or could be discarded during cognitive processing (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1968; Prinz, 2012). Most scholars agree that filtering can occur at multiple stages of information processing (Allport, 1993; Johnston & McCann, 2006; O’Connor et al., 2002).

Other theories expand on this concept in various ways such as a mechanism for bundling and integrating information (Treisman, 1999), an inherent limiting factor in the interaction between the mind and body (Hirst et al., 1980) a factor that improves cognitive efficiency and predictive accuracy (Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013) and finally a spotlight Theory, closely associated with GWT of consciousness. All these theories depict attention as an automatic, algorithm-based process, making it ideal for practical application in AI to enhance efficiency.

In contrast, competition and Unison Theories of attention was the first that introduced the notion of a top-down bias in attention selection, requiring the presence of agency (Desimone & Duncan, 1995; Reynolds & Desimone, 2000). Building on that notion, TTC provides a nuanced explanation of attention dividing it into two main types. The intentional attention  or DSIA is unique to NI, while algorithmic attention—Selection of Intelligence for alertness Based on Algorithm (SIBA)—is applicable to both NI and AI. SIBA can be effectively employed to optimize data processing in AI or unconscious mind, whereas DSIA is the keystone of awareness, agency and intention (Farhadi, 2024).

Role of Agency in consciousness.

The role of agency is frequently overlooked in many theories of consciousness. While higher-order and attention schema theories implicitly assume that agency is a prerequisite for consciousness, TTC explicitly identifies and emphasizes its critical importance. According to TTC, agency is pivotal for the selection of information for awareness, which is essential for making autonomous decisions. This explicit recognition of agency as a core element of consciousness distinguishes TTC from other models and provides a unique framework for understanding the interplay between awareness, decision-making, and the emergence of consciousness and agency as the result of their dynamic interaction.

The role of agency highlights a fundamental distinction in AI: although AI can simulate decision-making processes and perform complex tasks efficiently, it does so without true agency or consciousness. Understanding the role of agency in NI, as articulated in TTC, provides a clear boundary for evaluating the potential and limitations of AI in leveraging its capabilities to perform tasks effectively and within predefined parameters.

Reciprocal Role of Consciousness and Sense of Self

Self-awareness is a crucial aspect of consciousness and a defining characteristic of natural intelligence (NI). The significance of the sense of self was first highlighted by Alan Turing, who argued that a computer could never be the subject of its own thought due to its fundamental lack of self-awareness or self-identity.

Before the Cartesian renaissance, "I" was often regarded as a metaphysical or religious concept tied to the soul or psyche. For example, Berkeley suggested that the spirit acts as a constant observer of the self (Downing, 2020). Later, the Cartesian perspective redefined "I" as an entity interchangeable with the mind, likening it to an observer within the "Cartesian theatre" (Dennett & Kinsbourne, 1992). Descartes’ famous Cogito, Ergo Sum ("I think, therefore I am") was challenged by Bertrand Russell (1945), who sought to disentangle the sense of self from the act of thinking. Russell reframed the cogito as: "I think, therefore, there exist thoughts," emphasizing that thoughts presuppose awareness, making the self a subject of cognition (Shoemaker, 1986).

Building on the Cartesian perspective, John Locke proposed the idea of the self as a continuity of conscious memory, shaping identity over time. David Hume expanded further, suggesting that the self is merely a collection of perceptions. William James contended that the sense of self forms the core stream of consciousness, carrying our innermost thoughts. More recently, Antonio Damasio introduced two types of self: the "protoself," reflecting current self-awareness, and the "autobiographical self," associated with memories of the self (Araujo et al., 2015).

Recent theories of consciousness often take the sense of self-awareness for granted. For example,  IIT faces challenges in explaining whether the integration of information alone can also produce a sense of self and self-awareness. In fact, IIT aligns with Cogito in the sense that any thinking entity should inherently possess a sense of self. However, the  TTC provides a more nuanced perspective, suggesting that the integration of specific types of information can lead to both consciousness and a sense of self. In this view, Cogito might be amended to: "I am aware of thinking, therefore, I am."

According to TTC, the intertwined functions of ABCS and  DSIA not only enable consciousness but also cultivate a sense of self by merging awareness with intentionality. This interpretation aligns with Damasio's protoself, a capacity clearly out of reach for AI. Similarly, the awareness of unconscious memories corresponding to Damasio's autobiographical self appears unattainable for AI. Nevertheless, presenting information about the self in a manner indistinguishable from self-awareness is a challenge that will be discussed in the next section. This poses a significant issue in differentiating whether AI merely has knowledge or truly knows an entity.

Does AI need to be conscious to appear conscious?

There is no doubt that current AI systems are capable of performing numerous processes, such as storing and accessing data, analyzing information, expanding their existing knowledge, gathering inputs from diverse sources, and executing tasks based on received information. These abilities often resemble human mental functions, such as preserving and recalling memories, reasoning, accruing knowledge and experiences, sensing the environment, and reacting appropriately to stimuli—frequently with greater efficiency than humans.

The notion that machines lack awareness of their actions was notably articulated by John Searle in his “Chinese Room” paradigm, where he argued that a machine could perfectly translate English into Chinese for someone who does not understand the language, yet the machine itself would lack any true understanding of Chinese (Searle, 1980). However, Searle's paradigm, proposed over four decades ago, faces challenges in light of modern advancements in computing. AI systems today can convincingly pass Turing’s predictions of machine intelligence, raising the question: how can an observer objectively determine whether a machine understands Chinese in Searle’s paradigm, apart from the responses it generates? Similarly, how can we definitively assess someone’s subjective experience beyond their self-reports, verbal cues, or specific actions?

This raises the unsettling possibility that, while computers may never achieve true consciousness, an AI could convincingly simulate awareness or pretend to be self-aware. The inability to definitively prove or disprove the existence of self-awareness through anything beyond question-and-answer interactions creates a fertile ground for the emergence of AI "impostors" in increasingly complex societal roles.

Moreover, this invites a deeper philosophical question: Does self-awareness or consciousness truly matter if an entity can perform its tasks effectively and without issue? These considerations challenge our understanding of the nuanced and rapidly evolving role of AI in society, underscoring the need for critical reflection as technology continues to advance.

Does AI Need Autonomy to Present as a Threat?

Before assessing the risks associated with AI, it is important to review the types and capabilities of AI currently in existence. Broadly, AI can be categorized into three main types:

Narrow AI (Weak AI):
Narrow AI has already surpassed human efficiency, speed, and accuracy in isolated mental functions. It is designed to perform specific tasks with high precision, such as voice or facial recognition, weather prediction, or language translation. While limited in scope, Narrow AI's capabilities continue to transform industries and daily life.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI, or Strong AI):
AGI represents systems capable of understanding, learning, and applying intelligence across a broad range of tasks. Unlike Narrow AI, AGI can generalize knowledge, adapt to new situations, and perform various intellectual activities similar to humans. Applications of AGI include full self- driving, advanced search engines like ChatGPT, and innovations in medicine and engineering. Although still in its developmental stages, AGI has become a focal point for scientific advancement and societal debate.

Artificial Superintelligence (ASI, or Super AI):
ASI refers to a theoretical form of AI that surpasses human intelligence in all domains, including creativity, decision-making, and even emotional intelligence. It is theorized that the machine is capable to independently learn and improve itself at levels beyond human comprehension, potentially without human intervention. While ASI remains hypothetical, its development—or the secrecy surrounding it due to national security concerns—has intensified an international race among nations to advance their AI capabilities. The potential existential threat posed by ASI looms large in this context.

Some argue that since ASI has not yet been achieved, there is no immediate existential threat. Others find reassurance in theories of consciousness that suggest AI cannot achieve full consciousness or autonomy. However, even the currently available AGI, designed for specific tasks, can pose significant risks if misused by bad actors. These risks have the potential to escalate into existential threats.

Given these dangers, establishing a global supervisory framework may be urgently required. Much like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversees the use of nuclear technology, a similar global body could regulate the development and deployment of AI technologies to ensure peace and security on an international scale.

Summary of Distinctions Between NI and AI

As computer science has advanced significantly in recent decades, understanding the distinctions between NI and AI has become increasingly critical. This distinction is particularly relevant in ongoing discussions about AI's potential to think, achieve consciousness, or attain self-awareness.

As discussed earlier, theories like IIT suggest that AI could theoretically be considered conscious, albeit at a level far below that of humans. Other theories of consciousness, such as the GWT, Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT), and Neuronal GWT, similarly align with IIT by attributing a limited form of consciousness to current AI. Additionally, hybrid AI systems, where a neural network forms the core neuromorphic architecture of an electronic chip (Wang, 2021), may bypass many limitations of existing AI. Such systems could potentially develop a schema for attention or introduce AI as a subject into experiences, meeting the criteria of higher-order and attention schema theories of consciousness.

At this time, TTC provides a clear distinction between NI and AI by defining NI as a conscious entity due to the presence of the mind’s faculty known as “I” (Figure 1). In the absence of “I,” the mind remains an unconscious entity, akin to AI. It is important to emphasize that not all awareness and decision-making processes in NI originate from DSIA and ABCS. Both NI and AI rely significantly on algorithmic processes, such as SIBA and Selection of Choices Based on Algorithm (SCBA), which lead to autopilot decisions and alertness, respectively (Figure 2).

In this framework, awareness plays a crucial role in decision-making through ABCS, while discretion or decision-making is integral to awareness via DSIA. However, this dynamic is not a reflexive cycle but rather forms an asymmetrical, non-reflexive spiral, illustrating a unique and progressive interplay (Figure 3). Similarly, in the unconscious mind and AI, the processes of alertness and algorithmic decision-making also form an asymmetrical, non-reflexive spiral (Figure 4), reflecting their distinct operational structure.

While AI exclusively relies on SCBA for decision-making and SIBA for attention, NI combines SCBA with ABCS for decision-making and SIBA with DSIA for awareness processes. This duality provides NI with significant flexibility and efficiency in performing tasks and making decisions, while simultaneously enabling consciousness. Thus, AI's lack of consciousness is not merely a consequence of limited capacity or processing power; it is fundamentally tied to the absence of the faculty of “I,” underscoring the principle that "There is No I in AI" (Farhadi, 2021).

Hard Problem of Consciousness and AI

Awareness serves as the foundation of consciousness, giving meaning to our lives by transforming objective information into subjective experience. Through this transformation, sensation becomes perception (qualia), knowledge becomes knowing, memory becomes remembering, and emotion becomes feeling. Yet, the mechanisms that underlie this profound shift remain what Chalmers (1995) termed the "hard problem of consciousness." None of the theories of consciousness reviewed in this manuscript, including the TTC, fully addresses this challenge.

However, TTC offers a unique perspective by clearly distinguishing between awareness and consciousness. Based on this distinction, TTC proposes that the "hard problem of consciousness" should more accurately be redefined as the "hard problem of awareness." This reframing emphasizes the role of awareness as a prerequisite for consciousness while underscoring the limitations in understanding its underlying mechanisms.

Until the hard problem of consciousness (or awareness) is resolved, the notion of AI achieving consciousness remains speculative and lacks a solid theoretical foundation.

Limitations of Theories of Consciousness

The theories of consciousness reviewed in this manuscript are conceptual models that provide a foundation for developing empirical hypotheses and generating new theoretical insights. While these models offer valuable frameworks for visualizing core concepts such as consciousness and attention, they lack the precision needed for calculations or empirical predictions. Furthermore, they do not propose detailed neural mechanisms to explain the processes underlying consciousness, nor do they fully address the "hard problem of consciousness," as previously discussed.

Conclusion

Consciousness is often defined as a state of mind, while awareness is described as an experience. Despite subtle distinctions between these terms, they are frequently used interchangeably across scientific and philosophical discussions. This review underscores that most theories of consciousness fail to clearly delineate the boundaries between these two concepts.

Among the theories examined, TTC stands out as an extension of IIT and GWT. Like its predecessors, TTC presents consciousness as an emergent phenomenon resulting from the integration of information. However, TTC distinguishes itself by specifying two mental functions—ABCS and DSIA—as the mechanisms responsible for this information integration. These functions not only lead to the emergence of consciousness but also foster self-awareness, offering a unique framework that bridges gaps left by other theories.

TTC further emphasizes agency as an indispensable byproduct of consciousness, setting it apart from other models. While some theories might interpret the alertness generated by algorithmic attention and autopilot decisions in current AI systems as indicative of consciousness, TTC takes a more restrictive view. It argues that intentional attention and the capacity for decisions based on autonomous decision-making—hallmarks of natural intelligence (NI)—are prerequisites for true consciousness and selfhood.

According to TTC, self-consciousness emerges as a byproduct of consciousness through the intricate interaction of awareness and intention. This dynamic interplay, driven by ABCS and DSIA, culminates in the formation of the mind’s faculty known as "I," which fundamentally distinguishes NI from AI.

Further research is essential to refine these conceptual models, deepen our understanding of consciousness, and develop empirical frameworks capable of addressing its complexities more effectively.

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[1]  Director, Digestive Disease center, MemorialCare Foundation.

[2] Associate Professor, University of California, Irvine, Department of Medicine.

 The Triphasic Model of Love: An Adaptation to the State of FLOW

Ashkan Farhadi

Numerous scientific attempts have been made to deconstruct the various dimensions of love, such as identifying its core components—attachment, intimacy, and passion (Sternberg, 1986)—or pinpointing neurobiological correlates of pleasure and reward in brain regions such as the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus (Bartels & Zeki, 2000). However, the transformative nature of love, capable of inspiring creativity, resilience, and profound meaning, extends well beyond the scope of scientific analysis alone. Whether experienced as an intensified form of desire, fleeting infatuation, enduring commitment, or even an unhealthy obsession, love remains central to human existence, guiding individuals toward their aspirations.

This essay seeks to simplify the intricate nature of love by proposing a new framework—the Triphasic Model of Love (TML)—and examining its adaptation to the State of FLOW.

The Journey of Love: From Attraction to Union based on TML

TML offers providing clarity on .

The Triphasic Model of Love (TML) a comprehensive framework to understand how love develops, deepens, and transforms over time, presenting love as a dynamic and evolving process rather than a singular event or static emotion. It conceptualizes love as a journey that unfolds through three distinct yet interconnected phases:

1.     Attraction (Pre-Love) – The Phase of Rational Assessment

• Love begins with attraction, where an individual experiences interest toward the subject of love—whether a person, an ideal, or a passion.

• The rational mind plays a significant role in this phase, assessing the feasibility of pursuing love based on personal readiness, risks, and external factors.

• This phase sets the groundwork for deeper emotional engagement but is not yet true love—it is desire with evaluation rather than emotional surrender.

2.     Love – The Phase of Deep Emotional Absorption

• Love transcends rational control and becomes an overpowering emotional force, often marked by intense devotion and self-surrender.

• This phase is characterized by three key stages:

• Belonging – A deep sense of commitment and emotional connection with the beloved without expectations of reciprocal control or possession.

• Ignorace (Ignoring with Grace) – A deliberate disregard of flaws, obstacles, or consequences, allowing emotions to overcome logic.

• Creation – The transformative power of love, where love reshapes identity, fuels creativity, and leads to personal or artistic expression.

• Love in this phase is intensely immersive, reshaping one’s perception, priorities, and actions.

3.     Union (Post-Love) – The Phase of Relationship and Transformation

• Upon achieving union, love evolves into a shared experience, forming a loving relationship that requires commitment, respect, and engagement to sustain.

• The once individual experience of love becomes a mutual and bidirectional connection, leading to stability and emotional depth.

• In non-romantic love (e.g., love for art, science, or philosophy), union manifests as dedication, mastery, or lifelong pursuit rather than interpersonal commitment.

• Union is not the end of love—it is a new beginning, where love transitions into a shared relationship that continues to evolve.

Using an Analogy of a Container and Fluid to Simplify the Complexities of Love

Love, with all its emotional intricacies, can be understood through the analogy of a container and fluid, offering a structured way to conceptualize its transition from Attraction to Union and beyond. One may envision the rational mind—shaped by genetics, upbringing, experiences, belief systems, and societal norms—as a container designed to hold and regulate the fluid nature of instincts and desires.

Attraction: Containing Desire Within Rational Boundaries

During the Attraction phase, similar to a fluid, desire enters the container, where it remains controlled and contained within the boundaries of rationality. At this stage the fluid of desire is shaped and structured by the logic of the mind, ensuring that emotions remain under control.

Love: The Overflow of Desire

However, when desire intensifies beyond control, the fluid of passion surpasses the container’s capacity, overwhelming rational constraints, , one enters the Realm of Love. This overflow of desire escapes the strict governance of logic and takes on a life of its own we may call it love. This experience still remains deeply personal, singular, and transformative, shaping the individual’s emotional experience.

Union: The Transition to Interconnected Containers

Upon Union, the dynamics of love fundamentally change—what was once a solitary container of love and desire transforms into interconnected containers, where love is no longer an individual experience but a shared emotional force between two individuals.

This interconnected system symbolizes:

• Bidirectional exchange of emotions and commitment.

• A shift from personal longing to a shared, sustaining force.

• The transformation of passion into mutual engagement and stability.

At this stage, love no longer solely overwhelms the rational mind, as it transitions into a stable, evolving experience, requiring active participation from both partners to sustain and nurture their connection.

Love Developing After Union: Infusing Fluid into an Existing Connection

When a relationship exists first—such as colleagues, friends, or acquaintances—the containers are already connected in some form. If the fluid of love and desire is gradually infused into this connection, it can facilitate an emotional transformation, turning a non-romantic relationship into a loving one.

This process explains how, in modern relationships, love may develop after union, rather than preceding it.

Unlike the raw, unstructured passion of Immersive Love, which overwhelms logic, love within a shared relationship operates at a new equilibrium—it becomes sustaining rather than overwhelming. At this stage, love is no longer a personal emotional force but a balanced, enduring experience, shaped by mutual exchange.

Adapting the Triphasic Model of Love to the State of FLOW

There are many parallels and key distinctions between the state of FLOW, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990), and the experience of love as outlined in the Triphasic Model of Love (TML). Both love and FLOW involve deep immersion, a loss of self-conscious control, and a state of effortless engagement. However, their purposes and trajectories differ significantly, particularly after attaining union in love and goal in the FLOW.

Assessment in the Attraction Phase of Love and the Optimal Experience in FLOW

In TML, the role of rational assessment during the Attraction phase of love closely aligns with the concept of optimal experience in FLOW. In FLOW, an individual matches their skill level to the difficulty of a task, ensuring the right balance for deep immersion. Similarly, in TML, the Assessment stage in Attraction involves evaluating the viability of pursuing love, weighing personal readiness against the complexities of the journey ahead. This rational preparation serves as the foundation for the immersive experience of love in the next phase.

Immersion in Love vs. Immersion in FLOW

Both love and FLOW involve a state of deep absorption, where an individual becomes entirely engaged, disregarding external distractions. The rise of love, much like the onset of FLOW, is marked by an intense focus that often leads to ignoring other aspects of life, creating an all-encompassing experience. In both states, the individual are so fully engaged in the process that they lose awareness of time, self-consciousness, and external concerns. Also, both states involve an effortless involvement, where actions feel natural and spontaneous, a sense of being carried forward and carried away by the experience, without deliberate control and a self-rewarding nature, where the experience itself feels fulfilling without external validation.

This parallels the perception of love as a spontaneous force, rather than a calculated endeavor.

The Role of Rationality: The Escape from Logic

Both FLOW and love tend to minimize the role of rationality, allowing emotion, passion, and instinct to take precedence.

• In love, this is seen in Ignorace where embracing vulnerability, acting on impulses, and surrendering to deep emotional immersion without overanalyzing.

• In FLOW, this manifests when an individual experiences a natural harmony between challenge and skill, leading to a loss of self-conscious control and an effortless state of performance.

The Divergence: What Happens After Immersion?

While FLOW and love share many similarities, they fundamentally diverge once the union is attained in love and goal in achieved the FLOW. While FLOW is temporary and appear as a fleeting state that naturally dissolves once the task is completed, Love evolves with Union marking a transformation rather than an dissipation.

In FLOW, a sudden break in engagement is inevitable once the challenge no longer demands full cognitive and emotional investment. This often leads to a feeling of emptiness, as the individual is no longer immersed in the heightened experience.

In love, however, Union marks the beginning of a new transformation. Unlike FLOW, which ends in disengagement, love transitions into a relationship that fosters continued commitment and evolution—ensuring that there is no void or abrupt ending in the journey.

while FLOW is a cycle of temporary engagement, love is a journey of transformation. FLOW must be renewed through new challenges, but love sustains itself through deepening connection.

Thus, while FLOW offers temporary fulfillment, love remains an enduring and evolving force, reshaping both the self and relationships in profound and lasting ways.

Parallels Between the State of FLOW and the Phases of TML

While the state of FLOW shares structural similarities with the Attraction  phase of TML, it is particularly well-aligned with the three key stages of the Love in TML

1. Belonging → Merging of Action and Awareness in FLOW

A defining characteristic of FLOW is the merging of action and awareness, where an individual becomes so deeply engaged in an activity that they feel a complete connection with it.

• In love, the first stage—Belonging—mirrors this state, as the individual experiences a profound emotional connection with the subject of love.

• Just as in FLOW, where a person fully immerses in an activity and loses their sense of separation, in love, the lover no longer sees themselves as an isolated being but rather as part of something greater—whether a person, an ideal, or a passion.

• This phase signifies a willing surrender to the experience of love, much like the effortless engagement found in FLOW.

2. Ignorace (Ignoring with Grace) → Loss of Self-Consciousness in FLOW

In FLOW, individuals experience a loss of self-consciousness, meaning they stop focusing on external judgments, doubts, or fears.

• In the second stage of love—Ignorace—the lover deliberately ignores logic, calculation, and even potential consequences, fully embracing the intensity of love without hesitation.

• Just as in FLOW, where individuals stop analyzing their performance and instead become fully absorbed in the moment, in love, one chooses to see through "rose-colored glasses", allowing passion to take precedence over reason.

• This stage aligns with the sense of timelessness in FLOW, where individuals stop worrying about the past or future, immersing themselves entirely in the present experience of love.

• Hope replaces fear, and love becomes blind to obstacles, much like how FLOW removes distractions and allows complete engagement in the experience.

3. Creation → Autotelic Experience and Innovation in FLOW

A defining feature of FLOW is that it is autotelic, meaning the experience itself is the reward, independent of any external validation.

• In the final stage of love—Creation—the individual transcends personal desire and self-interest, channeling love into something greater—whether it be art, innovation, or personal transformation.

• Just as individuals in FLOW achieve a state of effortless creativity, in love, this stage results in a metamorphosis—the lover becomes a creator rather than merely an experiencer of love.

• At this stage, love is no longer self-centered, but instead manifests in creative expression, whether in art, literature, scientific discovery, or spiritual transcendence.

• This aligns with FLOW’s role in driving creativity and innovation, where individuals produce their best work, not through force, but through uninhibited inspiration.

Conclusion

The Triphasic Model of Love (TML) and the state of FLOW both describe transformative experiences that evolve through distinct stages of immersion, self-surrender, and ultimately, creation. While they share similar trajectories, their endpoints fundamentally diverge—with FLOW gradually fading once the goal is achieved, whereas love evolves into a new commitment, and shared transformation after union.

By integrating these insights, we gain a deeper understanding of how both love and FLOW amplify the human experience—shaping moments of profound meaning, engagement, and personal transformation. This comparison further reinforces the idea that love is not merely an emotion but a deeply immersive process, much like FLOW, requiring complete absorption, emotional surrender, and creative evolution.

Just as FLOW fosters an optimal state of engagement and fulfillment, love follows a similar journey—drawing individuals into an experience that reshapes perception, identity, and purpose. However, unlike FLOW, which dissipates upon task completion, love persists and evolves, reinforcing long-term commitment and transformation.

By understanding these parallels, we broaden our perspective on love—not as a static sentiment, but as a dynamic process that unfolds through immersion, devotion, and creation. Like FLOW, love has the unique potential to elevate human existence, infusing life with depth, meaning, and an enduring sense of fulfillment.

References

1. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.

 The Triphasic Model of Love and its Variations

Ashkan Farhadi

Even though love is often regarded as the essence of life and the reason for existence, understanding this abstract concept has always been a challenge. The multifaceted and profoundly human experience of love spans a wide spectrum of emotions, behaviors, and relationships. Its manifestations take countless forms—romantic infatuation, familial affection, passion for art and creation, patriotism, loyalty to a group or cause, and altruistic ambitions. This deep-rooted drive, observable in many sentient beings, serves as the fundamental basis for reproduction, parental care, and social bonding, contributing to survival from an evolutionary standpoint (Fisher, 2004).

While love may be considered a universal drive, its expression varies across cultures and eras, shaped not only by genetic influences but also by nurture—upbringing, family dynamics, societal norms, religious beliefs, personal values, and individual experiences. In other words, the complex interplay between innate drives and the rational mind’s regulatory mechanisms creates a diverse range of mental and behavioral responses, many of which remain difficult to fully describe or explain.

The abstract and versatile nature of love allows it to be perceived in countless ways—as a path, a goal, a journey, an experience, a condition, a process, or a state of being—each offering a unique lens through which to explore this profound concept.

This essay seeks to simplify the intricate nature of love by proposing a new framework—the Triphasic Model of Love (TML)—and examining its different phases and variations. By conceptualizing love as a Journey and breaking it down into distinct phases, this model aims to provide a clearer understanding of how love evolves, shapes, and defines the human experience.

The Journey of Love: From Attraction to Union

The journey of love—from its initial spark of attraction to the ultimate union—can be visualized as a path beginning at Point A (an individual) and leading to Point B (a goal, another individual, or an ideal). This journey unfolds in three distinct phases, the first of which is Attraction.

1. Attraction — Pre-Love

The first phase of love, Attraction, marks the beginning of emotional or intellectual interest in the subject of love. This attraction may stem from physical appeal, emotional connection, intellectual admiration, or a deep sense of inspiration. This phase is deeply interwoven with rational thought. The rational mind immediately engages in evaluation, determining whether pursuing this path is viable, appropriate, and meaningful.

This phase involves:

• Weighing the pros and cons of pursuing love.

• Recognizing the complexities of the journey ahead.

• Assessing one's own abilities, limitations, and willingness to take risks in love.

Ultimately, this conscious process leads to a decision—to either move forward toward union or abandon the pursuit before deeper emotional involvement occurs.

The Role of Rationality in the Attraction Phase

Unlike instinctive attraction in animals, human love is governed by conscious thought, social norms, and ethical considerations. The rational mind plays a pivotal role in shaping raw desire into a structured and meaningful pursuit. This ensures that love is not merely an impulsive reaction but a conscious decision aligned with personal values, social expectations, and emotional readiness.

However, not all attractions progress beyond this phase. Many desires remain ephemeral, fading before a decision is made—whether due to:

• Societal norms that discourage certain pursuits.

• Personal hesitations regarding compatibility or practicality.

• Logistical constraints that make the pursuit unattainable.

• Fear of risk-taking, leading to avoidance rather than engagement.

As a result, countless attractions never evolve into deeper experiences, remaining as fleeting desires rather than transformative connections.

Attraction: A Prelude to Love

While some may mistake intense attraction for the entirety of love, this phase alone does not constitute deep, immersive, or transformational love. Instead, Attraction serves as a prelude—a crucial step in preparing the individual for the next phase, where love matures and deepens.

Some attractions will remain transient, never progressing further. Others, however, will evolve into profound, enduring experiences of love, ultimately leading to Immersion—the next phase of the journey.

2. Love — Belonging, Ignorace, and Creation

As desire deepens and intensifies, particularly when the journey toward union surpasses Attraction and is met with a conscious acceptance of complexities and obstacles, emotional investment grows. This escalation moves beyond mere attraction or infatuation, reaching a state where desire transcends rational control and transforms into a profound emotional force—one that can rightfully be called Love.

The hallmark of Love is the liberation from the governance of rationality—an experience where emotions take precedence over logic. However, a fundamental question remains:

What makes Love so distinct that it is instantly recognized as something beyond mere attraction?

According to the Triphasic Model of Love (TML), Love is not merely an augmentation of desire from the Attraction phase. Instead, it is the result of a qualitative transformation—a multi-layered psychological and emotional process that unfolds through three sequential stages:

• Belonging

• Ignorace (Ignoring with Grace)

• Creation

Stage 1: Belonging – A Deep Sense of Loyalty and Commitment

The first stage of Love is Belonging—a state characterized by loyalty, devotion, and unwavering commitment, where the lover embraces the idea of belonging to the beloved without expecting reciprocal control or possession.

In this stage:

• The individual feels deeply connected to something greater—whether a person, an ideal, or a pursuit.

• A profound sense of unity and purpose emerges, reinforcing the joy and enchantment of Love.

• This phase contrasts sharply with the suffering often associated with Love—pain only arises when Love becomes transactional—when expectations of reciprocity or possession lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

Stage 2: Ignorace – Ignoring with Grace

The second stage, Ignorace, represents a deliberate departure from rational calculation and the adoption of a hopeful, fearless perspective.

• This stage aligns with the old saying, "Love is blind," as the lover chooses to overlook imperfections in the beloved.

• However, Ignorace is not naivety—it is a conscious decision to prioritize hope over fear.

• Obstacles and difficulties no longer deter the lover, as Love fuels unwavering persistence and emotional resilience.

This phase can be understood as a selfless trade, where the individual gives everything without expecting anything in return.

Examples:

• An artist, in love with their craft, does not calculate the cost, time, or sacrifices made in creating their masterpiece.

• A lover, despite uncertainty, continues to nurture love with full devotion.

The Ancient Greeks described Love as a form of insanity, and Friedrich Nietzsche famously stated:

"There is always some madness in Love. But there is also some reason in madness."

Similarly, Persian literature portrays Love as a divine madness, particularly in Sufi traditions, where Love is seen as a spiritual journey in pursuit of the Divine.

At this stage, the rational mind surrenders, and Love spreads like wildfire—igniting deep transformation and reshaping an individual’s thoughts, priorities, and emotions.

When healthy, this phase inspires creativity, artistic brilliance, and personal evolution—ultimately preparing the individual for the final stage of Love: Creation.

Stage 3: Creation – The Metamorphosis of Love into Identity and Expression

The final stage of love, Creation, marks its ultimate transformation—where love ceases to be a passive experience and actively reshapes the lover’s identity and purpose.

• In romantic love, this metamorphosis fosters deep personal growth, where individuals emerge with a renewed sense of self and commitment.

• In art, science, and philosophy, love manifests as innovation, discovery, and creative masterpieces.

• In spiritual or ideological devotion, love becomes an eternal pursuit of wisdom, enlightenment, or artistic expression.

At this stage:

• The lover is no longer who they once were—they undergo a profound transformation, shaped by their passions and experiences.

• This shift is often reflected in new identities and titles, assigned by themselves or others:

• A person deeply passionate about poetry becomes a poet.

• A devoted partner becomes a spouse.

• A visionary thinker becomes a philosopher, artist, or revolutionary.

This phase explains why love is often perceived as an overwhelming, irrational, yet deeply meaningful force—one that redefines identity, fuels creativity, and forever changes those who experience it.

3. Union — Post-Love

Union marks the beginning of a relationship. Upon achieving union, love transitions from an internal, personal experience into a shared, bidirectional connection, marking the culmination of the Journey from Attraction to Union. This stage signifies the beginning of an interdependent exchange—whether between two individuals or between an individual and their passion.

Union is defined by three key components:

• Commitment – A conscious decision to sustain and nurture the connection.

• Respect – A mutual acknowledgment of individuality and autonomy.

• Engagement – Active participation in maintaining and evolving the relationship.

From Personal Love to a Shared Relationship

Before union, love exists within an individual’s emotions, thoughts, and aspirations—a deeply personal experience. However, once union is achieved, love shifts into a reciprocal relationship, where emotional intensity transforms into mutual exchange and interaction.

While many core characteristics of love persist, its structure and dynamics change within a relationship:

• The intense emotional highs of love stabilize into a more enduring connection.

• The selfless devotion of Belonging transitions into a bilateral commitment.

• The irrational passion and Ignorace refines into sustainable transaction form of respect and engagement.

Union Beyond Human Relationships

Union is not limited to interpersonal relationships. Love for art, science, nature, or ideals also follows a similar transition into a form of union, though the nature of this union and its subsequent loving relationship differ significantly. Unlike romantic love, where union involves mutual exchange, love for a loving subject such as art, science or ideal results in a deeply personal and self-rewarding fulfillment, yet remains equally transformative.

For example:

• An artist’s relationship with their craft is not bidirectional in the same way romantic love is. Instead, their time, effort, and passion yield fulfillment and satisfaction, forming a unique bond between the creator and their creation.

• A scientist’s pursuit of knowledge is driven by curiosity and dedication, and the discoveries they make provide intellectual gratification and a sense of purpose.

How an Inseparable Pain Is Often Woven into the Journey of Love

Pain and longing are often perceived as inevitable companions to love, particularly when union remains unattained. The absence of union intensifies emotional depth, leaving love without resolution, often leading to suffering and unfulfilled longing.

This pain typically emerges before union or the formation of a loving relationship, when expectations—such as possessing the beloved or securing their loyalty in return for devotion—go unmet. The emotional void created by unfulfilled love can lead to a profound sense of loss, disconnection, and yearning, shaping much of human artistic, intellectual, and emotional expression.

However, this pain is not merely destructive—it carries profound transformative potential.

For many, the sublimation of pain becomes a powerful force for creation and transcendence. The emotional turmoil and longing that arise from love without union often fuel artistic brilliance, scientific discovery, and spiritual enlightenment. History and literature abound with examples of individuals whose deepest suffering gave rise to their greatest works—whether in poetry, philosophy, or creative innovation.

This duality of pain underscores its complex role in human experience. While it can be a burden, it also serves as a catalyst for growth, motivation, and creative expansion—particularly in domains where union remains elusive, such as art, science, and spirituality. Rather than being an obstacle, the yearning for the unattainable often becomes the very force that drives humanity toward its most profound achievements.

Union as a New Beginning, Not an End

Many perceive union as the culmination of love, yet in reality, it is merely a transition—one where love evolves into a loving relationship.

• For some, union deepens love, transforming it into a stable and enduring connection built on commitment, mutual growth, and shared experiences.

• For others, union signals a decline in passion, as love shifts from an emotionally heightened state into a more pragmatic and structured relationship.

Regardless of how union reshapes love, it defines a pivotal moment—one that ultimately reconfigures the lover’s perspective, identity, and emotional journey forward.

What Happens to Love If There Is No Union?

When union remains unattainable due to obstacles along the journey, desire often intensifies, fueling an even stronger longing for fulfillment. This unresolved passion keeps the lover engaged in pursuit, reinforcing their emotional commitment despite the increasing complexities of the path ahead.

However, the absence of union does not always lead to despair—instead, its impact varies, depending on how the individual processes unfulfilled love.

1. Love as Inspiration: The Transformation of Longing into Creativity and Transcendence

For some, the impossibility of union transforms love into a powerful source of inspiration, fueling artistic, intellectual, or spiritual pursuits.

• This aspirational love is deeply embedded in Persian poetry, Sufi traditions, and spiritual philosophies, where the unattainable beloved—whether a person, a divine entity, or an ideal—becomes a guiding force for self-discovery and transcendence.

• In classical Persian literature, longing itself is often glorified as more meaningful than fulfillment, as the journey of love is believed to shape the soul more profoundly than its resolution.

• In Sufism, the pain of separation is not seen as suffering to be avoided but rather as an essential step toward spiritual enlightenment and divine connection.

2. Love as Obsession: The Trap of Unrelenting Longing

However, for others, unfulfilled love does not inspire—it consumes. When the desire for union turns into fixation, it can lead to obsession, an unhealthy emotional state where the lover becomes trapped in a cycle of unrelenting longing and despair.

• Unlike the creative sublimation of pain, obsession does not channel love into growth or meaning.

• Instead, the lover clings to the unattainable goal, distorting reality and preventing closure.

• This state of emotional stagnation can lead to frustration, anxiety, or even self-destruction, as the lack of rationality erodes mental and emotional well-being.

This contrast between inspiration and obsession highlights the dual nature of love without union. Understanding this distinction illuminates love’s transformative power—even when it remains unfulfilled, it leaves a lasting imprint on the soul.

Is ‘Love at First Sight’ the Result of Omitting the Phase of Pre-Love?

It is often believed that love at first sight allows an individual to instantly fall into love, where the intensity of attraction overwhelms the rational mind, bypassing the usual evaluation and risk-assessment processes. However, even in such cases, the phase of Pre-love can not be entirely omitted—it is simply abbreviated or expedited, leading to a near-instantaneous transition into the immersive experience of love.

Can the Journey from Attraction (Pre-love) to Union (post-love) Proceed Without the Phase of Love?

In modern times, the ease of forming relationships has significantly altered the traditional Attraction—Love—Union sequence. Increasingly, the path from Attraction to Union is fast-tracked, where individuals form a connection almost immediately after attraction, with minimal assessment.

Rather than love driving the pursuit of union, union itself becomes the foundation upon which love may or may not later emerge. The rapid transition into union—for pleasure, companionship, convenience, or social expectations—has become the norm rather than the exception. In such cases, love is not absent—it is simply postponed, uncertain, or unnecessary to the relationship’s initial formation.

However, in most cases, love introduced into an already established relationship lacks the deeply personal and singular experience of Immersive Love—a love defined by Belonging, Ignorace (Ignoring with Grace), and Creation. Instead, these relationships often operate within the framework of Commitment, Respect, and Engagement, forming a stable yet distinct version of love—one that differs from the transformative experience of immersive love.

Examples of Skipping Love in the Journey from Attraction to Union, Yet Flourishing with Love Over Time

• Arranged marriages, where commitment precedes emotional intimacy.

• Friendships evolving into romance, where an existing bond gradually deepens.

• Professional or social connections, where love unexpectedly develops within an established dynamic.

This alternative progression underscores the fluid and adaptive nature of love in contemporary society, where traditional pathways are no longer the sole means of achieving meaningful romantic connections. It challenges the notion that love must always precede union, demonstrating that love can emerge, flourish, and evolve within an existing relationship—often in unexpected yet profound ways.

By rethinking the sequence of love, we gain a deeper appreciation for its versatility—whether it ignites instantly, grows gradually, or is woven into an existing relationship, love remains an evolving force that transcends rigid structures and definitions.

References

1. Fisher, H. (2004). Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. Henry Holt and Company.

2. Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119

3. Bartels, A., & Zeki, S. (2000). The neural basis of romantic love. NeuroReport, 11(17), 3829–3834. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756-200011270-00046

4. Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science. (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1882)

5. Persian Proverb (Traditional): "The heat of the love fever, sooner or later, settles into sweat." (Cultural reference)

 If you were God and wanted to create a fair world, what could you have done differently?

Existentialist philosophers like Camus argue that life is absurd and inherently meaningless, implying a lack of fairness. Nietzsche suggests that fairness is a human construct imposed on an indifferent world. Similarly, Tolstoy viewed the world as absurd, citing glaring inequalities and a lack of justice. He believed that the absence of meaning in existence, compounded by the inevitability of death, underscored life’s absurdity. According to Tolstoy, people respond to this absurdity in three primary ways:

1.     Ignoring the Absurd:
Some choose to live their lives without dwelling on existential thoughts, focusing instead on daily routines.

2.     Seeking Pleasure:
Others immerse themselves in pleasure-seeking activities to numb their minds and avoid deep reflections. However, Tolstoy believed this group is trapped in a perpetual cycle of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, enslaved by the nihilistic view that life has no meaning or purpose and they are living the life to the fullest by filling it with moments of pleasure.

3.     Relying on Faith:
A third group turns to faith, viewing this life as a temporary stage before reaching a fairer afterlife. They perceive this world as a place of sacrifice, where perceived injustices are rectified either by divine will or in the hereafter. For some, this belief is tied to God’s intervention; for others, it aligns with concepts like karma, which establishes universal fairness.

4.     A New Approach:
Tolstoy proposed a fourth way; acknowledging life’s absurdity while finding meaning in belief in the infinite nature of God and dedicating oneself to helping others achieve happiness. He argued that this path enables one to endure life’s inherent absurdity.

The ancient Persian poet Khayyam strongly aligns with Tolstoy’s second approach. Through his verses, Khayyam has captivated audiences, encouraging them to embrace wine, love, and living in the moment as a means to numb the mind and escape existential concerns:

" For a while as children, we sought to learn,
For a while as masters, in pride we did burn.
Hear now the conclusion of all that we earned:
From dust we arose, and to dust we return."

If the World Is a Fair Place,
What Are the Nuts and Bolts of This Fairness?

If you believe this world is not a fair place, you are in good company. In our study conducted across Orange County, California; Panama; and Iran, nearly 80% of participants expressed the belief that the world is inherently unfair. This essay explores whether the structure of the world might support the possibility of inherent fairness and examines how contemplating fairness through the lens of happiness could offer new insights. It does not aim to prove that the world is fair but rather considers whether fairness might exist in subtle or overlooked forms. Moreover, the idea of fairness as synonymous with the notion that "we get what we deserve" remains open to interpretation.

Foundations of Fairness in the World

1.     Causality as a Pillar of Fairness:
Causality governs actions, establishing a foundation of fairness where every action has a consequence, and every effort yields a result. While events may seem like isolated snapshots, they are, in fact, the culmination of interconnected actions, reactions, and countless subtle events that lead to a noticeable outcome. It is a reasonable and fair assumption that no one possesses the power to transcend the universal law of cause and effect.

2.     Subjectivity of Good and Bad:
The interpretation of events as good or bad is inherently subjective. People assign value to events based on their beliefs, culture, and experiences. What seems unfair to one person may appear just to another. Moreover, perspectives can shift over time—what once seemed like a misfortune may later be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Thus, labeling events as unfair is often a reflection of personal perception rather than objective reality.

3.     Limited Knowledge of Events:
Our understanding of events is often incomplete. While judgment is natural, acknowledging the limits of our knowledge raises doubts about the rendering the judgment of fairness of situations that we do not have a full knowledge of its dimensions.

4.     The Web of Relationships:
Life exists within a network of interconnected relationships. Just as one derives happiness from the well-being of loved ones and those within close proximity in this network, one can also experience suffering through the misfortunes of others, creating a collective sorrow. The suffering of an individual often impacts many others, generating ripple effects that can reveal a broader context of one person's rewards or reprimands. Viewing an individual within this larger picture may help connect the dots, offering deeper insights into interpreting the fairness of an event.

5.     The Fallacy of “More is Better”:
Happiness often lies in balance rather than abundance. The concept of satiety in various aspects of life reduces the appetite for seeking "more," allowing for a fairer distribution of opportunities without excessive competition. Excess—whether in wealth, fame, or power—frequently results in unintended drawbacks. A world founded on the principle of moderation is more likely to create a level playing field for achieving happiness. However, the relentless pursuit of abundance, amplified by the influence of media in the hope of attaining fulfillment and contentment, undermines both fairness and genuine happiness.

6.     The Role of Randomness:
Life’s randomness, much like a game of snakes and ladders, underscores its inherent unpredictability. While random changes in life’s circumstances may not align with conventional notions of fairness, the universal and impartial nature of randomness offers its own foundation for fairness. This unpredictability also highlights life’s impermanence, leaving open the possibility of drastic shifts in the status quo toward a fairer outcome. Moreover, life’s unpredictability fosters hope for a better status and perpetual gratitude to keep the status quo—both essential ingredients for happiness.

7.     The Paradox of "You Can’t Have an Apple and Eat It":
When it comes to living entities, the saying "you can’t have an apple and eat it" loses its relevance. Those who avoid exercise cannot maintain their body’s shape and strength, while those who engage in regular physical activity not only avoid wear and tear but also enhance their body’s strength and durability. Similarly, individuals who neglect their memory gradually lose their ability to recall, whereas those who actively use their mental faculties can delay memory loss and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Regardless of social status or the necessity (or lack thereof) of physical or mental engagement, everyone faces the risk of losing these functions if they forgo activity. It seems the system is delicately designed to encourage engagement in physical and mental activitieis ensure that even those who might not need to engage in physical or mental activities must do so to preserve their capabilities.

8.     Perception of Achievements:
What others view as success may hold little value for the individual. Attributes deemed desirable by society might be unimportant or even burdensome to the person possessing them. For instance, individuals who outwardly appear to have achieved everything may still feel deeply dissatisfied, as evidenced by cases of those in high status who tragically take their own lives. This subjectivity underscores the complexity of assessing fairness based on external markers.

9.        The Value of Effort:
Nothing truly meaningful comes easily. Significant achievements typically require effort and sacrifice, which makes them more rewarding. Conversely, things that come effortlessly are often less valued, creating a level playing field for the pursuit of fulfillment. This design seems to reward active participation in life, reinforcing the value of effort as essential for sustaining both physical and mental well-being.

10.  Aging and Death as Equalizers:
Aging and death are universal and inescapable, affecting all living beings equally. Death is not a sudden event but rather the culmination of a gradual and well-orchestrated process—aging—that begins at inception. This lifelong journey diminishes the appetite for survival, gently preparing individuals to accept life’s end. This inevitability equalizes everyone, regardless of their social or economic status, and underscores the value of time, making it life’s most precious resource. Without death, life itself would lose its meaning. A friend once remarked, “If I were God, I would ensure everyone starts at the same line in life, like a race with equal head starts.” To this, I would respond that while starting points may vary, death ultimately serves as the same finish line for all.

11.  Adjusting Expectations:
A recent encounter with a patient beautifully illustrated this concept. A young teacher, who had lost her ability to speak due to complications from radiation treatment for a brain tumor four years ago, communicated using a small whiteboard. When I reassured her about her recent abnormal imaging, she expressed her gratitude by writing "thank you" on her board ten times. Despite her significant limitations, her gratitude and happiness were evident, even during that brief interaction. Her ability to adjust her expectations allowed her to find joy, reinforcing the idea that happiness can serve as a token to compensate for life’s imperfections and challenges.

12.  Happiness Through Others:
True happiness often arises from shared well-being. Regardless of one’s social, physical, or monetary status, personal joy is deeply connected to the happiness of others. This interconnectedness fosters an intrinsic sense of responsibility for individuals to contribute to the happiness of those around them. By tying one’s well-being to the well-being of others, this principle acts as a safeguard, encouraging individuals to fulfill their roles in establishing and maintaining universal happiness. In this way, it becomes an unseen force working toward universal fairness.

13.  Happiness Beyond Zero-Sum:
Happiness does not follow a zero-sum model. One person’s joy does not require another’s loss. Instead, win-win scenarios often lead to the most fulfilling experiences, reinforcing fairness in life’s design.

Conclusion

Equality is an objective concept, while fairness is inherently subjective, shaped by individual perspectives. The reasoning outlined here does not aim to prove that the world is inherently fair; rather, it lays the groundwork for envisioning a fairer world, should one choose to adopt that viewpoint. This essay proposes that fairness might exist in ways that are not immediately obvious, particularly when examined through the lens of happiness. While the world may not accommodate absolute equality, it can still be perceived as fair in certain respects. This perception is especially relevant in the context of happiness, which acts as a balancing token, mitigating the imperfections of the world and restoring a sense of universal fairness.

Some may question the value of believing in fairness, arguing that such a belief would not alter external circumstances. Indeed, our belief in the fairness of the world cannot change the reality outside ourselves. Yet, such a belief profoundly influences one’s attitude, fostering contentment and enhancing individual happiness. In this sense, the world may not be absurd after all—it is a place worth living. Our study found that individuals who believe the world is a fair place report higher overall levels of happiness. Therefore, revisiting our attitude toward fairness in the world may not change external reality, but it has the power to transform our inner world into a happier and more fulfilling place.

Other factors in the search for meaning in life can also be reinterpreted through this perspective. For example, death, rather than being a limiting factor, serves as a poignant reminder to treasure time as life’s most valuable asset. While life inevitably ends, this does not render it meaningless. Even when we are no longer active participants on its stage, our influence persists. The relationships we build and the lives we touch endure, affirming the profound interconnectedness of existence and extending our impact far beyond our time.

Whispers of India

New Delhi—An Old Bride

New Delhi
an old bride
that still boasts
to the ancient town.

A city vibrant with life,
wrapped in a veil of dust and smog,
filled with the ceaseless hum of traffic,
the sharp cries of honking horns.

March marks the end of the tourist season,
yet the city extends its invitation—
vast, with its millions upon millions of lives,
resilient, relentless, unyielding.

Staying in a five-star hotel,
wrapped in the trappings of luxury,
we dare to step beyond
its polished Western disguise.

The real city lurks just outside,
its face raw and unfiltered.
Life flows in waves—
harsh, ruthless, unapologetic.
Haunting eyes stare,
challenging us to look back,
yet we hesitate.

The shame of being an outsider,
the fear of facing their scarcity,
makes us drift through them—
unseen, unseeing.

A beggar or two on a street—one can numb oneself to that.
But here, numbing takes more.
It demands surrendering a piece of your sanity
until you retreat to the refuge of your hotel.

Smiles greet us—
warm, practiced, uncertain.
Are they genuine?
Or do they wait for a tip
that may or may not reach their hands?

The sensory overload is inevitable.
Two glasses of cheap wine,
smuggled into the hotel from a nearby shop,
help dull the edges.
A cigarette by the pool
completes the illusion.

For a moment, we pretend we are home.
That life, as we know it, can go on.

We are here for a wedding.
Six events over three days—
an escape into rituals and spectacle,
a showcase of how life could be different.

Dressed in local attire,
we admire our reflection,
though the fabric screams, “borrowed.”
Still, it makes a good selfie.

Are these people happy?
Hard to tell.

Are they living the life they deserve?

The questions linger,
floating in the mind,
unanswered.

The Tale of Two Nations

A glimpse
of the Taj Mahal
through its grand gate
took our breath away.

A sense of pride
struck my heart—
Momtaz, who rests in peace,
was Persian.

A great Mughal emperor,
a devoted lover,
ordered a monument—
to remember and to be remembered.

But wait—
how could a Mughal emperor
create something
so exquisite?

Our memory of the Mongols
is one of ashes—
burning, slaughtering,
razing civilizations to the ground.

They conquered and ruled Persia.
All books were burned,
mosques torn down,
cities flattened.

And yet, in India, they saw a hero.
They unified a fractured land,
built mosques,
wove Persian culture into its fabric.

Here, they are remembered
as emperors who ruled a vast empire,
the ones who rebuilt
a broken nation of a hundred kings.

But in Iran, they remain invaders
the ones who demolished
what little remained
from past conquerors.

Two nations, one tribe.
A legacy divided—
a story told
by ruins and monuments.

The Union

A cheerful glow in yellow,
under the midday sun,
bathed in light, colors, and petals,
dancing, swaying in the joy of union.

Laughter rises, weaving bliss into the sky,
the sun envies the golden hues of their robes.
A ritual interwoven with songs and melodies,
the bride’s joy—pure, unguarded.

A feast of abundance, lavish and rich,
flavors lined up in eager invitation,
plates overflowing with fulfillment,
a table untouched by sacrifice.

A spectacle of light,
dancers twirling, voices soaring,
heralding the joy of union
in every breath, in every moment.

The celebration of union,
a beautiful translation of love,
the tale of two becoming one,
a new chapter in an ancient book.

Solace in Chaos

Unsettled in a car,
unnerving traffic.
Yielding is not part of the plan—
whoever gets the way first, wins the battle.
Yet the war of wheels looms on.

Ceaseless honking.
Small bikes with truck horns,
a symphony of sound—
nonstop, unapologetic, unorchestrated.

I retreat into my mind,
seeking some order.
I reach into my bag for a pill—
to tolerate the chaos.

Motorbikes, tricycles,
a pedestrian darting across,
a slow horse cart in the speed lane—
unbothered, unhurried.

A jeep stuffed with twenty passengers.
A truck barreling the wrong way.
Yet everyone is purposeful, determined—
men with missions.

But the driver—he is calm.
He cuts others off—calm.
They cut him off—calm.
No cursing. No anger.
No honking in rage.
No honking in protest.
No honking in insult.
Just playing his part
in the symphony.

The sun is setting on the horizon,
clearly tired of its day job.
A half-orange cloud
roving gently with the breeze—
unbothered by the honking,
unmoved by the traffic and crowd.

In a colorful play,
it dances softly with the last rays of the sun.

And yet—how alike they are.
Incontrovertible.
A solace in the sky,
and a solace in the driver’s seat.

A divine solace,
not cut from the cloth of mere tolerance.
This is acceptance.

A land of many kings, many gods—
yet India remains one nation.
More than a miracle.
The magic of acceptance.

If the world seeks to unite,
if it hopes to move beyond its divisions,
there remains one recipe:
Acceptance.

Awareness at the Crossroad of Illusion and the Soul

Abstract

Awareness and consciousness are often used interchangeably, yet they represent distinct cognitive phenomena. While consciousness is commonly perceived as a state of mind encompassing one’s environment and self, awareness is the subjective experience derived from objective mental processes. This transformation converts sensation into perception, knowledge into knowing, emotion into feeling, and memory into remembering. Despite its undeniable importance, awareness challenges the current physical framework of brain function, sparking debates about its nature. Some scholars argue that awareness is an illusion—an interpretative process of the brain adapted to reality—while others equate it to the immaterial and immortal concept of the soul. This article examines awareness as a cognitive construct within the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) and explores its role in processes such as awareness-based choice selection (ABCS). It further differentiates awareness from illusion—a dysfunctional cognitive process—and from the metaphysical notion of the immaterial soul. Finally, it underscores the critical role of awareness in self-reflection and decision-making.

Awareness versus an Illusion?

Many scholars have argued that awareness is nothing but an illusion. Daniel Dennett, one of the pioneers of this idea, contended that awareness arises from the brain's interpretive processes rather than its objective mechanisms (Dennett, 1991). This notion has been echoed by other philosophers such as Franklin and Brent (Frankish, 2016). In this view, the brain’s interpretation reconstructs reality, piecing together incomplete sensory information and filling in the gaps with knowledge from prior experiences and predictions. As a result, awareness is considered a constructed perception designed to make sense of what is happening. Since the  perception involves a constructive, interpretative process rather than a direct reflection of sensory inputs, thus supporting the claim regarding the gap between sensation and perception as evidence of mental reconstruction (Gregory, 1997). Consequently, proponents of this perspective conclude that awareness is nothing more than an illusion.

However, from a literal perspective, an illusion is defined as a sensory deception, false belief, intellectual error, or misleading appearance (Berent, 2024). This essay challenges this notion by examining the function and variations of awareness through the lens of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) (Farhadi, 2021). According to TTC, awareness is not merely a byproduct of cognitive reconstruction but rather the keystone of human experience and the foundation for meaning in life.

Awareness is a function not a dysfunction:

Based on TTC, awareness is the keystone to consciousness and is not the end product of the interpretation of reality but rather the stepping stone for understanding the world and making decisions based on free will through the mechanism of awareness-based choice selection (ABCS). According to TTC, the awareness process comprises four distinct stages: preselection, selection, transformation, and post-selection stages.

The TTC posits that humans are composed of three fundamental elements: the body, the mind, and the "I". In this framework, the "I" emerges from the interplay between two cognitive functions: "Awareness-Based Choice Selection," or free will, and "Discretionary Selection of Information for Awareness," or intentional attention. This interaction acts as the gateway linking the unconscious mind to awareness, forming the basis for the experience of self-awareness (Figure 1).

Unlike traditional theories that equate consciousness directly with awareness, the Trilogy Theory differentiates these concepts, redefining consciousness as the dynamic interaction between awareness and decision-making processes. According to this theory, awareness unfolds through four sequential stages (Figure 2): in the preselection stage, environmental and internal data are processed unconsciously; in the selection stage, the results of this unconscious processing are chosen via automatic or intentional attention; in the transformation stage, selected information is transformed into subjective awareness or conscious experience; and finally, in the post-transformation stage, these conscious experiences underpin voluntary decision-making, purposeful behaviors, and other cognitive activities (Farhadi, 2021).

Preselection Stage.

In the preselection stage, preparatory cognitive processes receive all information from bodily sensors that convey data from the inner body and the surrounding environment (Figure 3). Additionally, thinking processes, reasoning, memories, knowledge, and emotional information are integrated, forming either informational or emotional intelligence that competes within the mind at this stage. Dennett’s explanation of the awareness process only accounts for the preselection stage within TTC, which aligns with the late selection theory of attention (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1968), the spotlight theory of attention (Fernandez-Duque & Johnson, 2002), and the unison theory of attention (Desimone & Duncan, 1995; Reynolds & Desimone, 2000). However, these theories deviate from TTC when addressing the selection stage of awareness, as explored below.

Selection Stage

For any information to reach our awareness, it must be selected through a process that can be called attention. Attention is a mandatory process for improving the efficiency of information processing in AI as well as NI, and without it, the constant stream of information could overwhelm the awareness. There are two ways to draw attention to a particular piece of intelligence for the next step of awareness. Based on TTC, the information may become attended either through the selection of intelligence based on algorithm (SIBA) or discretionary selection of intelligence for awareness (DSIA).

There are several interpretations of attention as a means to improve data processing efficiency. One of the earliest comprehensive models views attention as a filtering system, creating a bottleneck that selectively allows certain stimuli among multiple sensory inputs to affect our nervous system and become registered by perception (Broadbent, 1971). This filtering can occur at various stages during data entry and processing. In early selection theory, information is filtered out at the initial stages, before deep processing occurs. In contrast, the late selection theory defines attention as a filter that operates after sensory data have been automatically registered, allowing only selected stimuli to reach subjective awareness or working memory (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1968; Prinz, 2012). Empirical studies further suggest that filtering can actually happen at multiple levels throughout the processing pathway (Allport, 1992; Johnston & McCann, 2006; O’Connor et al., 2002).

Other theories of attention expand this concept beyond filtering, describing it as a mechanism for bundling and integrating information (Treisman, 1999), as an inherent limiting factor in the mind-body interaction (Hirst et al., 1980), as a factor enhancing cognitive efficiency and predictive accuracy (Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013), or as a spotlight theory closely linked to the global workspace theory (GWT) of consciousness.

At first glance, TTC aligns with late selection theories in the sense that all information is processed in our mind, whereby intelligence competes for attention to reach our awareness. However, the sentinel difference between TTC and the late selection theories of attention stems from the incorporation of agency in the process of attention. The competition and Unison Theories of attention was the first that introduced the notion of a top-down bias in attention selection, requiring the presence of agency (Desimone & Duncan, 1995; Reynolds & Desimone, 2000). Building on that notion, TTC provides a nuanced explanation of attention dividing it into two main types. The intentional attention or Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA) that is unique to NI and algorithmic attention or Selection of Intelligence for alertness Based on Algorithm (SIBA) that is applicable to both NI and AI. SIBA can be effectively employed to optimize data processing in AI or unconscious mind, whereas DSIA is the keystone of awareness, agency and intention (Farhadi, 2024).

As it is evident, the explanation of Dennett lack any need for selection stage as in the proposed explanation, selection of subject of information is an automated process similar to SIBA.

Transformation Stage

In the transformation stage of awareness, biologically objective information within our mind is converted into subjective experiences. The absence of a credible scientific explanation for this transition is widely acknowledged and referred to as the "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers, 2010). This lack of a clear physical explanation tempts some scholars to either negate the process entirely or label it as dysfunctional, akin to an illusion. Similarly, since post-awareness information drastically diverges from a straightforward reflection of reality, and instead serves as an interpretation that substantially differs from the actual sensory input, one can readily recognize how this profound alteration—sometimes termed an illusion—creates a separation between decisions based purely on objective events and those based on the subjective awareness of events. This mechanism, known as awareness-based choice selection (ABCS), offers a critical departure from deterministic frameworks, providing natural intelligence the possibility of free will.

Thus, the transformation phase of awareness represents an intersection between physical and metaphysical realms. At this juncture, concrete neurological activities with a clear biological foundation—including neural networks, brain structures, and electrochemical processes—give rise to subjective experiences, feelings, and states of consciousness that defy complete explanation by physical terms alone. The inherent subjectivity and the difficulty of objectively measuring awareness have consequently sparked philosophical and scientific debates on whether awareness transcends physical reality. Put differently, awareness, while fundamentally rooted in physical processes, extends into metaphysical contemplation through its subjective nature.

Determining whether future research will establish the operation of this enigmatic stage of awareness within the deterministic scope of classical Newtonian physics, the indeterminate laws of quantum mechanics, or even a new domain of physics altogether remains an open question for scientific exploration. Nonetheless, the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) intentionally refrains from addressing the inner workings of this transformation phase, thereby leaving the hard problem of consciousness unresolved. Instead, TTC emphasizes the preliminary stages (preselection and selection) and the final stage (post-selection) of awareness, along with the pivotal role of causality within these stages.

Post-transformation Stage

The story of awareness does not end at the transformation stage. In fact, its function begins here, as the precepted information serves as the foundation for further mental actions including the decision-making process (Figure 4). As the result of generation of post-transformation information (PTI), a spiral, asymmetrical, non-reflexive sequence will be formed that links awareness and decision-making. In this scheme, PTI acts through ABCS and results in making a decision based on free will, while decision-making is the foundation of DSIA that is critical for awareness and results in generation of the next PTI. The integration of information resulting from these dual processes leads to the emergence of consciousness as a higher-order phenomenon.

Further processioning of the PTI are being performed at mind where mental processing such as comparing information against memories for patterns or details, making judgments about specific aspects of the information, using the information as a clue for reasoning, excitation of emotion, stamping the event with time and location for preservation in short- or long-term memory or using the information for decision making. This may resemble the feature integration theory, where information from different sources binds together to form a bundle (Treisman, 1999). Alternatively, the post-transformation process is akin to the neuronal version of the global workspace presented by Dehaene et al. (1998). Nonetheless, this stage of awareness plays a key role in the selection stage of decision-making and demonstrates how the process of decision-making intertwines with awareness, as elaborated in TTC.

Awareness is not an Illusion but Illusion is a Dysfunctional Awareness

As described above, awareness is a key mental function composed of several stages, and many details of this complex function are yet to be fully understood. However, illusion is also a form of awareness—an awareness arising from a subject that is prepared in the preselection stage (Figure 3). While it may seem that the problem with illusion is misinterpretation at preselection, where the information from bodily and environmental sensory input generates erroneous or invalid data, there is also an issue in the post-transformation stage of awareness (Figure 5). Here, the transformed information is matched with memories, knowledge, and reasoning, yet individuals experiencing illusions are often unaware of their false beliefs or lose their touch with reality due to a simultaneous problem at the post-selection stage of awareness.

Interestingly, this dysfunctional awareness is selective and does not generalize to the other subjects of awareness. For example, the awareness resulting from other subjective experiences—such as sensory input, thinking processes, memories, and emotional information—can still be processed normally in individuals experiencing visual or auditory illusions.

Dysfunction in awareness is not limited to illusion. Other forms of dysfunctional awareness can be hallmarks of psychosis, where an individual may lose their touch with reality all together due to more generalized problems with subjects of awareness beyond sensory input. For example, hallucinations, illogical or paralogical thinking, para-reasoning, and false memories—hallmarks of psychosis—are examples of dysfunctional awareness extending beyond misinterpretation of sensory input. These cases reflect generalized dysfunctions in both the preselection and post-transformation stages of awareness similar to illusion.

Awareness is a Shared Experience

As elaborated above, illusion is not a shared experience; the affected individual experiences something that others do not. Individuals experiencing illusions have perceptions of bodily sensations or environmental events that cannot be meaningfully communicated or shared with others. In contrast, normal awareness, although inherently subjective and personal, is largely shared and understood similarly by different individuals. This shared experience enables people to easily exchange ideas about its details and meaningfully discuss their experiences with one another.

Dreaming: A Unique Segway to Awareness

Sleep and dreaming represent unique states that challenge the notion of equating awareness solely with wakefulness. Indeed, it appears that a form of awareness may extend beyond wakefulness. Dreaming is a distinctive mental function occurring during sleep, presenting a narrative orchestrated largely by the unconscious mind while most sensory inputs to awareness are filtered out during the selection stage. Although a detailed exploration of sleep, dreaming, and associated disorders is beyond the scope of this essay, briefly stated, as one falls asleep, many mental functions become activated, potentially including modified forms of awareness.

During deep sleep, the selection stage of awareness usually acts as a barrier, filtering out many bodily and environmental stimuli, yet allowing certain significant stimuli, such as loud noises or bright light to penetrate through automatic attention (SIBA), causing the individual to awaken. During dreaming, most cognitive processing remains within the unconscious mind, with minimal access to short-term memory. Dreams stored in short-term memory upon waking may reach awareness or retained into long-term memory if intended; otherwise, these memories quickly fade and become inaccessible to later awareness.

The phenomenon of lucid dreaming, however, introduces complexity to this understanding. In lucid dreams, the individual becomes aware while still asleep and can actively influence decisions upon thinking, reasoning and narratives within the dream within a limited form (LaBerge et al., 2018). This scenario is not only a modified version of the preselection and selection stage of awareness, it also shows a modified post-selection stage of awareness, where the memory comparison, judgment, and logical alignment are impaired resulting in transient detachment from reality similar to psychotic states, albeit occurring during sleep rather than wakefulness.

Because general awareness is largely suppressed during sleep, the mechanism of awareness-based choice selection (ABCS) is inactive. Consequently, most sleep-induced activities, such as involuntary movements or nonsensical speech, are controlled through an autopilot system (SCBA). Occasionally, coordinated activities like sleepwalking or sleep talking may occur (Arnulf et al., 2017). These automatic behaviors might evoke the concept of philosophical "zombies" proposed by Chalmers (1996), beings that can act and respond without subjective awareness—a notion particularly provocative during a time before advances in artificial intelligence rendered the analogy less speculative

Awareness versus the Soul

Some scholars have tied awareness to a metaphysical construct traditionally called the soul. The idea of the soul, despite its long history, found its footing in the more modern Western philosophy presented in Cartesian dualism, where the dualism of mind and body left the idea of mind an open interpretation for the traditional concept of the soul. In the Cartesian model, and particularly the Cartesian theater, there is a special place reserved in the mind where the observations are presented for our subjective judgment by the soul. In this theater, the soul—or its representative self—observes subjective experiences (Dennett & Kinsbourne, 1992). This idea was also echoed in the work of religious scholars such as Berkeley (1713), who interpreted spirit as an observer akin to the Cartesian theater (Downing, 2020).

All these descriptions blur the notion of awareness and the soul to the extent that many see the soul as the venue for awareness where the material world crosses over to the realm of immaterial existence. Even though Berkeley was the first to propose this perspective in 1710 (Dancy, 1998), it was Reid and several other scholars who proposed an agency in the form of a metaphysical mind that is in the driver’s seat of decision-making (Chisholm, 1966; Clarke, 1996; O’Connor, 1995; Pereboom, 2014; Zimmerman, 1984). This metaphysical agent—soul—is a form of self that is not bound to causality. For the sake of simplicity, in this brief essay, we stay away from other terms that can be used interchangeably with the soul, such as spirit, psyche, essence, or life force. Nonetheless, there are several distinctions that can help to tease out awareness as a mental function from the soul.

Awareness is an Experience. 

While awareness is a direct and undeniable experience, the soul remains a belief. Everyone experiences awareness every moment, yet we do not experience the soul directly—it remains an idea or a belief system that cannot be empirically verified.

Awareness is Momentary. 

Awareness is a dynamic process that fluctuates from moment to moment. It appears and disappears continuously, influenced by external stimuli and internal cognition. This contrasts with the soul, which is typically described as an uninterrupted and eternal entity.

Awareness is Dependent. 

Awareness relies on brain function. Since awareness is a subjective experience of brain objective activities, it is not surprising that  awareness can be easily modified by alteration in chemical or physical condition of the brain. This prove that awareness is completely dependent on the brain function while, the soul is often perceived as independent of the physical body and capable of persisting beyond it.

Awareness Can Be Interrupted. 

Awareness can be interrupted by physical means such as medication, anesthesia, or sleep, as discussed earlier. However, the notion of an entity that ceases to exist and then reappears does not align with traditional descriptions of the soul.

Awareness Can Be Distorted. 

Awareness is susceptible to distortion through various mind-altering conditions, including diseases or psychoactive substances. For example, psychedelics and other psychoactive compounds can temporarily alter awareness, significantly changing perception and cognition. The idea that the soul could be distorted or altered by chemical influences does not align with its traditional portrayal as an immutable essence separate from the material world.

Nonetheless, the distinction between awareness and the soul is not meant to preclude belief in the soul or its possible existence. Rather, this essay seeks to clarify that awareness, as a subjective and cognitive experience, does not align with the traditional concept of an immaterial, immortal, independent, and continuous medium known as the soul.

Conclusion

Awareness is one of the major functions of the brain. While undeniable in its effects and importance, it challenges our current understanding of the physical framework of mind function. The lack of an objective assessment or a physical process to fully explain awareness has led some to deny its existence or label it as an illusion. Historically, many emergent phenomena once believed to be "unexplainable," such as gravity or electromagnetic forces, were eventually integrated into scientific frameworks as science advanced. On the other side of the debate, awareness has also been equated with the immaterial and immortal concept of the soul.

This intrinsic experience is not merely a mirror of information obtained from sensory or bodily sensors but an integration of information including thought, reasoning, judgment, and emotion, forming a comprehensive interpretation of the self and reality that are the source of meaning in life. Moreover, awareness is the foundation for decision-making based on free will. Through awareness-based choice selection (ABCS), we can navigate beyond determinism while still adhering to the principles of causality.

On the other hand, awareness properties of being a dynamic, momentary, and dependent function of the brain that is predisposed to interruption and distortion does not fit the description of an immaterial, immortal, independent, and continuous medium known as the soul. The distinctions drawn in this essay clarify that definition of awareness does not fit neither a mere illusion nor an eternal soul. Instead, awareness is, still of the most fundamental aspects of human cognition and existence.

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Toward a Field-Based Model of awareness: Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness

Ashkan Farhadi MD, MS, FACG, FACP

 Abstract

This paper proposes a novel, field-based model of consciousness by integrating the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness with principles from Quantum Field Theory into Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness. Unlike traditional neuroscientific or dualistic views, the Quantum Trilogy model conceptualizes awareness as a universal, selfless field that underlies all subjective experience. In this framework, consciousness is not merely a byproduct of brain activity but arises through the dynamic interplay of awareness, intention, and reflective decision-making. By aligning concepts from quantum field theory—such as vacuum fields, symmetry breaking, gauge fixing, and field excitation—with the stages of awareness transformation, this paper reinterprets metaphors from quantum mechanics such as wavefunction collapse, superposition, and decoherence as analogs for mental states and volitional processes. Subjective experiences are modeled metaphorically as quantized excitations within the awareness field, referred to here as noëtons, the fundamental units of structured awareness, intention as symmetry breaking, and the emergence of the “I” as a result of framing experience through internal reference. The paper also explores the role of biological structures—such as DNA and microtubules—as potential quantum-coherent transceivers capable of interfacing with the universal awareness field, offering a novel explanation for long-range, non-chemical interactions between cells. While this integration does not claim to solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness, it reframes it in field-theoretic terms, suggesting that consciousness may be structurally isomorphic to physical reality. The work concludes by outlining theoretical implications, experimental directions, and the potential foundation for a new, field-based cognitive science grounded in both quantum theory and subjective experience.

Introduction

Consciousness remains one of the most intriguing frontiers in both philosophy and science. While neuroscience has made strides in mapping the correlates of conscious experience, it has yet to account for the existence of awareness experience itself.

In most prevailing scientific views, no firm distinction is drawn between awareness and consciousness. These perspectives generally treat consciousness as an evolutionary byproduct of complex biological computation, arising from electrochemical processes in the brain. Within this framework, consciousness is regarded as an epiphenomenon—useful for adaptation but lacking causal power of its own [1–3]. Some theories even consider it a perceptual illusion—a distorted yet adaptive interpretation of sensory and internal data designed to guide organismal behavior [4].

However, a contrasting group of scholars considers consciousness a separate quality, distinct from physical processes. Following Descartes' dualism, they posit the existence of two separate realms—material and immaterial—that cannot fully traverse each other, despite appearing to interact. This view has struggled to explain how non-physical awareness could causally influence physical matter or human behavior.

In an effort to bridge these two perspectives, a third approach has emerged. It considers consciousness the result of physical events but regards it as a fundamental phenomenon yet to be fully understood within the framework of existing physical laws. Panpsychism is one example of this view, suggesting that consciousness is an intrinsic feature of all matter and emerges in degrees through integration of information [5]. As Chalmers noted, “conscious experience... is a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time” [5].

Other conciliatory theories seek to reframe consciousness through the lens of quantum physics, proposing a deeper physical or metaphysical substrate. In Bohm’s view, consciousness and matter unfold from an “implicate order” — a non-local, holistic field from which reality arises [6]. Max Tegmark, meanwhile, has suggested that consciousness may be a distinct “state of matter” called perceptronium, defined by the ability to store and process information in a unified, stable form [7]. A.N. Whitehead, one of the early philosophical influences on process-oriented models of consciousness, argued that “the universe consists of a plurality of actual occasions” — experiential events grounded in process rather than substance [8]. Echoing this, Stapp emphasized that quantum theory necessitates the participatory role of the observer, arguing that “consciousness is needed to complete quantum dynamics” [9,10].

Among the most detailed and ambitious efforts is the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) model proposed by Penrose and Hameroff, which locates consciousness in quantum computations within neural microtubules [11]. According to this view, moments of “objective reduction” of quantum states — where the wavefunction collapses due to gravitational thresholds — give rise to conscious experience. Penrose argued that this collapse is non-computable, and thus beyond the reach of classical algorithms [12].

Further extensions of this theory have been reviewed by Gao [13], who examined the explanatory power of quantum mind models and their potential to resolve the gap between subjective experience and physical causality. In tandem, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a comprehensive overview of quantum approaches to consciousness, acknowledging both the promise and limits of these speculative models [14].

This paper presents a different approach in quantum-consciousness integration: one that is not based on literal quantum computations occurring in the brain, but on a structural correspondence between the awareness transformation process proposed by the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) and principles of Quantum Field Theory (QFT). This gives rise to the Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (QTTC), a framework which uses QFT not as a physical mechanism, but as a formal language and conceptual architecture for modeling awareness, intention, and decision-making. In this model, **noëtons** are introduced as the quantized units of excitation in the awareness field—analogous to particles in physical fields but carrying structured phenomenological content rather than mass or charge.

The TTC outlines a multi-phase cognitive process in which unconscious information among environmental and internal data is selected, transformed into subjective awareness, and finally modulated through intentional attention and decision-making (Figure 1). In this model, the “I” emerges not as a fixed entity but as a dynamically constructed frame—formed by the interplay between two cognitive functions: Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) and Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA) or intentional attention (Figure 2). It posits that humans are composed of three fundamental elements: the body, the unconscious mind, and the "I". Unlike traditional theories that equate consciousness directly with awareness, the Trilogy Theory differentiates these concepts, redefining consciousness as the dynamic interaction between awareness and decision-making processes (Farhadi, 2023).

This paper proposes a unified framework that integrates structural principles from QFT and metaphorical dynamics from quantum mechanics (QM) into TTC’s model of consciousness (Figure 2 and 3). Rather than treating consciousness as emergent from brain activity, QTTC positions awareness as a universal field. In parallel, QM introduces concepts such as wavefunction collapse, superposition, and the observer effect — all of which serve as powerful metaphors for modeling intention, choice, and transformation in the process of awareness-based choice selection through interaction of this field after transformation to form intention. Our aim is to map QFT’s field dynamics to TTC’s core components and use quantum mechanical metaphors to enrich our understanding of choice, transformation, and subjective experience.

Adaptation of TTC and QFT

1. Universal Awareness as Quantum Vacuum Field

In QFT, the vacuum state is not void or empty. It is a dynamic field of potentiality, latent with fluctuating energy and virtual particles. Even in the absence of observable particles, the quantum vacuum teems with virtual particles that momentarily emerge and disappear, influencing measurable phenomena. This ground state serves as the foundation from which all physical excitations arise.

Similarly, QTTC proposes a structurally analogous concept: a universal awareness field that is ever-present, and serves as the ground of all possible experiences, independent of individual minds. This field is timeless, neutral, and devoid of form, intention or memory, but provides the potential for all three. It does not “think” or “choose,” but exists as a substrate of potential—a metaphysical backdrop from which personal awareness arises. It frames consciousness not as something localized solely within the brain, but as an interaction between individual mind structures and an underlying, ever-present field of potential.

2. Intention as Symmetry Breaking

Symmetry breaking in QFT occurs when a system chooses one state among many symmetrical possibilities, giving rise to specific structures. This is a critical mechanism in the emergence of distinct phenomena from a uniform field—such as the Higgs field imparting mass to particles.

In QTTC model, symmetry breaking represents the birth of intention—a directional shift in the awareness field, in preparation for selecting a subject for transformation. This act of volition may seem spontaneous and non-causal but in fact is based on awareness itself (of the prior moment) as it is caused through Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) as it will be elaborated below.

This metaphor also helps distinguish intention from mere reaction. Symmetry breaking in physics occurs without external enforcement; it is spontaneous but rule-bound. Similarly, intention in QTTC arises from within the awareness field—guided by the Awareness-Based  Choice Selection for—yet not causally predetermined by environment alone. It represents the point at which free will enters the frame, shaping the path of consciousness without violating systemic coherence.

3. Framing of Subjective Experience as Gauge Fixing

In Quantum Field Theory, gauge fixing is a mathematical technique used to remove redundancy in field descriptions. Gauge symmetries represent different configurations that, although mathematically distinct, describe the same physical state. To derive concrete, observable predictions from the theory, one must choose a specific gauge—effectively “fixing” a point of reference within the broader symmetry space.

In QFT, gauge fixing is required to remove redundancy in field descriptions and allows for meaningful, observable outcomes. Gauge symmetries represent different configurations that, although mathematically distinct, describe the same physical state. To derive concrete, observable predictions from the theory, one must choose a specific gauge—effectively “fixing” a point of reference within the broader symmetry space.

In QTTC, this act of framing serves two purposes. One is to provide a basis of the first-person perspective and allows the intertwine action of volition and awareness by recognizing itself as an "I." The gauge-fixed frame is what makes experience coherent, structured, and self-referential.  The “I” in QTTC is not a metaphysical constant or a singular, pre-existing entity. It emerges through the dynamic coupling of awareness and intention, structured through the framing operation. Gauge fixing, in this sense, is not a mechanism of brain computation but a model for how awareness establishes reference, selects context, and resolves ambiguity. The self is not just a user of information but a configuration within a broader informational field. By using gauge fixing as an analogy, we emphasize that subjectivity and personal identity are not primary absolutes, but contextual constructs that emerge through the selection and stabilization of awareness content in relation to intention.

It also removes redundancy in field descriptions by Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA) in the selection stage, where potential many mental inputs generated in the preselection stage are filtered through intentional attention and the selected intelligence is ready to be transformed into meaningful experience.

4. Subjective Experience as Quantized Excitation

In Quantum Field Theory, particles are not independent entities but quantized excitations of underlying fields. Each type of particle arises from a specific field (e.g., electrons from the electron field, photons from the electromagnetic field) and represents a localized, structured fluctuation within that field. These excitations carry energy, spin, and other measurable properties, and their behavior reflects the mathematical characteristics of the field they emerge from.

In the QTTC, we propose a structurally analogous concept: objective mental processes such as thinking, emotions, sensations are transformed to subjective experiences including thought, feeling and perception which are quantized excitations in the field of awareness. In this framework, we propose the term noëton (from the Greek noēsis, meaning “direct apprehension” or “pure awareness”) to refer to the quantized excitation of the awareness field. A noëton represents a structured unit of awareness prior to cognitive interpretation or reflective selfhood—analogous, in form, to the role of quanta in physical fields, but unique in its phenomenological function. These are not material particles, but phenomenological ripples that arise when awareness is modulated through intention, selection, and transformation. Each experience carries intensity, valence, and quality, just as each particle carries energy, charge, and spin and could be considered as virtual particles  .

5. Preservation of Awareness Experience as Field Configuration History

In Quantum Field Theory, fields do not simply exist in the present moment; they carry with them a configuration history—a record of prior excitations and boundary conditions that influences their current and future behavior. This history is embedded in the field’s structure and plays a role in how the field evolves over time, particularly in interactions with other fields and excitations.

QTTC posits that individual awareness arises through excitation in the field and can shape future states through informational and emotional history—akin to the memory of the filed. Just as quantum fields retain an imprint of past events that shape future states, the awareness field, once structured, retains a kind of experiential memory—not as stored data, but as an ongoing modulation of its configuration.

This field configuration history does not imply physical storage like that of neural memory systems, nor does it require a classical substrate such as the brain. Instead, it models how awareness evolves through patterns of experience, which modify the way new experiences are structured and interpreted. In this view, memory is not just a lookup of stored content, but a field-influenced framing of new inputs based on prior transformations. In this way, QTTC  does not treat awareness as a series of isolated events, but as a field with historical inertia—a carrier of prior excitations that guide the unfolding of future experience and provides a basis for understanding not only filed memory, but also higher-level phenomena like empathy, imagination, and moral reflection, which draw upon complex histories of awareness transformation.

6. Quantum Field as Selfless Medium

In QFT, the field itself does not possess identity or agency—it is a mathematical structure that gives rise to particles and interactions through excitation. The field exists prior to and independent of its excitations. It is timeless, formless, non-individuated, and without fixed boundaries until disturbed or structured.

In the QTTC, a parallel principle applies to the awareness field, which exist without personhood. It is selfless, not in the moral sense, but in the ontological sense. However, through interaction with this selfless filed, the sense of self emerges through stages that lead to transformation and awareness combines with intention through intertwin action of mental function ABCS and DSIA to form the "I," which serves as the localized center of consciousness.

By framing awareness as a field that is non-dual, selfless, and omnipresent, QTTC departs from theories that treat consciousness as either an emergent computational process or a metaphysical soul. Instead, it positions the self as a dynamic frame of reference—arising when structured awareness turns back upon itself in the act of self-recognition.

7. Quantum Mechanics as Metaphorical Framework for paradigm of decision-making

To complement the structural adaptation of QFT, in QTTC the adaptation of quantum mechanics concepts provides congruent metaphors for the decision-making and awareness-based processes. In this regard, quantum mechanics introduces several core ideas—superposition, wavefunction collapse, observer effect, and decoherence—that illustrate how uncertainty resolves into certainty, and how potential becomes actualized. In QTTC model, symmetry breaking represents the birth of intention as a directional shift in the awareness field, while wavefunction collapse represents the realization of that intention into a decision, collapsing superposed states into a conscious decision. In this view:

Superposition depicts multiple choices coexisting in mind before selection (preselection stage of decision-making) and wavefunction collapse is the act of decision-making, guided by Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS), collapses the field of potential into a single outcome (selection stage of decision-making).

QTTC still sides with the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) (Penrose R, 1994) that the collapse of wavefunction is non-computational and as part of fundamental basis for conscious experience but the proposed quantum superpositions collapse in mind is in the concert of consciousness and relates this collapse to gravitational effects. This stands in a sharp contrast with QTTC where the collapse of wavefunction part of decision-making paradigm and results as a consequence of excitation in the awareness field is. The way QTTC describe the QM principles reinstitute the observer effect which refers to the way measurement changes the system being measured. In this model awareness itself becomes a meta-observer, not merely witnessing but shaping what comes into focus through intention and framing that leads the collapse of the wavefunction due to ABCS. In this scheme, awareness does not passively reflect but actively configures and shape the experience.

In addition, the spontaneous decoherence explained in Orch-OR that explains how superposition collapses due to environmental interaction and gravitational force is considered to parallel the Selection of Choices Based on Algorithm (SCBA) in QTTC. This spontaneous collapse of superposition in mind occurs without deliberate awareness due to autopilot setup or pattern-driven processes in mind.  This decohered state  reduces the potential and complexity of choices into deterministic behavior via internal/external conditioning.

The famous thought experiment of Schrödinger’s Cat illustrates how a system may exist in contradictory states until observation resolves the outcome. In QTTC, this maps onto moments of indecisiveness, where contradictory thoughts or desires coexist within mind until resolved by reflective action (via ABCS).

In QTTC, there is no specific correspondence with quantum entanglement, that  describes a strict, physical correlation between particles. This analogy is not a claim of literal entanglement between minds, but a symbolic model for intersubjective resonance, or empathic awareness—where two or more individuals share patterns of experience or intention across space or time.

8. QTTC as a Bridge Between Physics and Cognitive Science

The adaptation of TTC and QFT i.e. QTTC can be seen as an adaptation of a cognitive-phenomenological process, cognitive science, and physics to be viewed in the light of quantum field systems (Table 1). In this merger, the architectural dynamics of awareness, decision-making, and identity formation bear deep structural similarities to the way fields behave and interact in theoretical physics.  This field-based architecture helps to reframe consciousness not as an emergent computational property of neural matter, nor as an immaterial soul outside of physical reality, but as a structurally embedded process—a patterned interaction within a deeper substrate of potential.

Importantly, the QTTC framework is not a mechanistic reduction of consciousness, nor a metaphysical elevation of it above nature. Its middle path places the awareness and physicality as two aspects of one structured reality, which can be described through overlapping mathematical and cognitive models.

In this light, QTTC does not merely adopt language from physics; it attempts to reorient the study of consciousness around the idea that field-based interactions—whether informational, intentional, or affective—are the fundamental units of conscious reality. This shift enables new forms of interdisciplinary research, where insights from physics and phenomenology can inform one another without collapse into reductionism or mysticism.

9. QTTC and the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Despite offering a structured and interdisciplinary framework, the QTTC  does not purport to resolve the Hard Problem of Consciousness, namely: How does subjective experience arise from physical systems?

Instead, this model aims to reframe the question itself. By conceptualizing awareness as a universal, selfless field and consciousness as a structured interaction with that field, QTTC offers a relational model rather than a reductive explanation. It suggests that conscious experience is not an emergent byproduct of complexity, but a coherent transformation of awareness into structure, meaning, and volition.

In other words, QTTC moves beyond substance dualism by positing structural isomorphism between awareness and physical processes. and replaces computational emergence with field transformation while offering decision-making and intention as core ontological processes within a broader, awareness-based architecture  that is not reducible to simple neural firings.

However, even with this reframing, a crucial question remains: How does biological systems interface with the filed of awareness? Specifically, what mechanisms—or substrates—might allow living cells to transmit, modulate, or receive information from a  universal awareness field?

One speculative proposal, in line with the Orch OR model by Hameroff and Penrose, suggests that microtubules—vibrational cytoskeletal structures within neurons—may act as quantum-resonant transceivers, sensitive to field-level information [11]. Yet microtubules are not the only structures with this potential. DNA molecules, due to their helical geometry, charged backbone, and oscillatory behavior, have also been proposed as biological vibrational transceivers can make them as a candidate that under the right conditions, generates non-local signaling for communication with other cells, or with a universal awareness field. This observation is consistent with theories proposed by Rempel MM [12]., who identified DNA vibrations as potential mediators of long-range biofield interactions.

Nonetheless, whether the vibration in microtubules or DNA or other potential cell antennas result in quantum coherent states where vibration of particles behaving like a unified wave that interacts with other systems or fields  and result in excitation within the awareness filed and generate the Awareness quanta —Noetone, it still falls short in answering how qualia arise. However, by recasting the hard problem in terms of field modulation rather than computational emergence, this model opens new terrain for investigating the interface between mind and field of awareness. It suggests that awareness may not be the end product of physical processes, but rather an actualization of awareness through structured, field-like interaction within and around living systems.

Discussion:

The relationship between quantum theory and consciousness has long inspired speculation, but few models have translated quantum concepts into structured frameworks for decision-making. The integration of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness with structural principles from quantum field theory presents a new approach— QTTC that does not rely on literal quantum processes in the brain, but instead offers a formalized cognitive architecture inspired by the structural logic of fields and quantum transitions.

Several foundational models have proposed that consciousness may originate in or influence quantum processes. However, QTTC differs in significant ways from existing quantum-consciousness proposals. For example, Orch OR proposed by Penrose and Hameroff [11,12], focuses on quantum state collapse as the origin of consciousness, locating this process within neuronal microtubules. While this view introduces a physical substrate for quantum processes in the brain, its focus is primarily on the generation of awareness, not the structured dynamics of decision-making or identity formation. In addition, Henry Stapp's interpretation emphasizes the causal role of conscious attention in collapsing quantum wavefunctions [9,10] . Stapp’s theory moves closer to decision modeling by granting intentionality a physical role in quantum outcomes, yet it still lacks a clear multi-phase cognitive structure to explain how choices are preselected, shaped, and integrated over time.

The QTTC, by contrast, introduces a layered field-based framework for awareness and its transformations. It does not propose quantum processes within neurons, nor does it rely on speculative physical substrates as a starting point. Instead, it aligns awareness with a universal field and principles from QFT to offer a structured ontology for understanding how experience arises, transforms, and integrates within a coherent field. It supports a view of consciousness that is neither computational nor purely material, but instead a dynamic interface between awareness and structured form.

Crucially, QTTC also emphasizes decision-making as central to consciousness—not merely as an output of cognition, but as the formative act through which awareness expresses volition, agency, and selfhood. This differentiates it from theories that locate consciousness in perception, integration, or entropy minimization. Moreover, the metaphorical alignment with quantum mechanics, particularly the parallels drawn with wavefunction collapse, superposition, decoherence is presented not as literal physics but as a modeling language. These metaphors are functionally analogous, helping to describe how awareness operates with possibility, probability, uncertainty, and structured resolution while following the core principles of quantum mechanics:

• Superposition metaphorically represents the preselection stage, where multiple possible thoughts, intentions, or actions exist in the field of awareness.

• Wavefunction collapse aligns with the selection stage, where intention emerges and a choice is made, transforming potential into action.

• Decoherence, in the form of SCBA (Selection of Choices Based on Algorithm), accounts for algorithmically driven, environmentally or habitually modulated decisions—automated processes that bypass full reflective awareness.

• The observer effect is reinterpreted not as external measurement but as meta-observation—the awareness, which plays an active role in shaping experience.

Together, these mappings contribute to a broader ontological proposal that consciousness is best modeled not as an emergent property, but as a patterned transformation within a field of awareness and while parallels the structure of physical fields but remains irreducible to material interactions. in this sense, QTTC departs from earlier approaches by proposing that quantum principles not only explain the origin of consciousness but also its function in cognitive processes. The model suggests that awareness is not a passive witness to quantum events, but an active participant in shaping outcomes, akin to a meta-observer that induces structured excitation in the field.

This perspective reframes the wavefunction collapse not as a mysterious external phenomenon, but as a metaphorical analog to choice selection property—rooted in awareness, resolved through intention, and expressed after transformation. It provides a novel ontological middle ground: not dualistic, not reductionist, but structurally isomorphic between physical and awareness fields.

Implications, Limitations, and Future Directions

Implications

The integration of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness with the structural architecture of Quantum Field Theory opens a novel avenue for modeling conscious processes through QTTC. By reframing awareness as a dynamic, field-like phenomenon—capable of excitation, modulation, and self-organization—this model bridges gaps between cognitive science, theoretical physics, and philosophical phenomenology. This approach offers several key contributions:

• It reframes consciousness not as an emergent neural computation, but as a structured interaction within a deeper awareness field.

• It introduces a formal language to describe awareness, intention, and selfhood using analogues from field theory—such as symmetry breaking, excitation and formation of Noeton, and gauge fixing.

• It proposes that decision-making is the core mechanism of consciousness, rather than perception or memory alone.

• It offers a non-dualistic alternative to both material reductionism and metaphysical dualism, pointing toward an ontologically unified field of structured being.

Limitations

Despite its conceptual framework, the current model is metaphorical and theoretical, not mechanistic nor computational. It does not offer testable predictions in the traditional sense of experimental physics or neuroscience. Specific limitations include:

• Metaphorical scope: The analogies to QFT and QM are structural, not causal. The model does not claim that consciousness arises from quantum fields in the same way particles do.

• Scale and Thermodynamic mismatch: Consciousness is a macroscopic phenomenon. Quantum phenomena such as superposition, entanglement, and coherence are typically observed in systems that are microscopic, isolated, and cooled to near absolute zero to avoid decoherence. In contrast, the brain—and by extension, the body and nervous system—operates at macroscopic scales, in warm, noisy, and highly interactive environments. These conditions are known to rapidly destroy quantum coherence, making the persistence of genuine quantum states over cognitive timescales extremely controversial under current physical models.  Even the proposed speculative mechanisms (e.g., microtubular coherence) lack definitive experimental validation. As such, QTTC must be understood not as claiming that awareness physically depends on quantum coherence, but rather that its cognitive architecture and phenomenological structure can be formally modeled using quantum field and quantum mechanical analogies. These metaphors capture the complexity, contextuality, and structured transitions of awareness at an abstract level that may not translate in mathematical modeling  with current knowledge and understanding of quantum physics.

• Empirical basis: While speculative mechanisms like microtubule or DNA resonance are suggested, there is no conclusive experimental evidence linking these to field-based awareness interaction.

• Mathematical incompleteness: A full mathematical formulation of the awareness field, its excitations, or transformations remains speculative at this time. Without this, the theory remains qualitative.

Future Directions

Despite these limitations, the QTTC model offers a fertile framework for multiple lines of development:

🔹 1. Mathematical Modeling of Awareness Fields

Future work could aim to formalize the awareness field using tools from field theory, differential geometry, and information dynamics. This includes:

• Representing awareness as a dynamic scalar field for simple presence and as a tensor field for multidimensional conscious states (e.g., time, clarity, intention, complexity of content). In this model, awareness begins as a vacuum field — a timeless, selfless presence — but upon excitation gains structure through the interplay of intention, reflection, and memory. This structured awareness is best modeled as a tensor field, where each point encodes multi-dimensional experiential parameters such as time, clarity, complexity, and volitional direction. This allows TTC to represent not only the presence of awareness but its dynamic evolution and phenomenological richness

• Explore how awareness excitations might be mapped to quanta-like structures—Noeton—in field equations.

• Use non-linear dynamics or information geometry to model choice selection and self-reference.

🔹 2. Biological Interface Hypotheses

• Further explore microtubules, DNA, or other cellular structures as possible field-resonant antennas for awareness interaction.

• Investigate models of non-chemical cellular communication, such as those published in colon cancer cell studies, as potential evidence of field-level signaling.

• Collaborate with bioelectromagnetic and biophoton researchers to examine coherent oscillations in living systems.

🔹 3. Cognitive Science Integration

• Compare the QTTC model to predictive coding, global workspace theory, and integrated information theory.

• Use the decision-making architecture (ABCS and DSIA) to explore volition and attention in artificial and natural systems.

• Propose phenomenological studies that track how intention, awareness, and transformation unfold in structured cognitive tasks.

🔹 4. Toward a Unified Science of Mind and Field

If QTTC is to serve as more than metaphor, future work must strive to integrate:

• Phenomenology (lived experience) with quantum field dynamics.

• Cognitive neuroscience with non-reductive quantum frameworks.

• Philosophy of mind with cosmological models of consciousness (panpsychism, dual-aspect monism, neutral monism).

This may require a new paradigm—a Field-Based Cognitive Science—in which awareness is treated not as an emergent artifact, but as a structural property of the universe, expressible through field mathematics and experimentally accessible through its patterns of transformation.

🔹 5. Ethical and Existential Implications

Finally, if awareness is fundamental and entangled with reality itself, then each act of attention or intention participates in shaping the universe. This reframes the role of consciousness not just as a phenomenon to explain, but as a creative force with responsibility, meaning, and metaphysical weight.

Conclusion

The integration of Trilogy Theory of Consciousness with the conceptual architecture of Quantum Field Theory offers a novel framework —QTTC, for understanding awareness not as a byproduct of matter, but as a dynamic, intentional field of potential and transformation. While the quantum analogies employed in this model remain metaphorical, they provide a rigorous structural language to describe cognitive phenomena such as intention, identity, decision-making, and self-awareness.

By aligning subjective experience with field-based excitations, and volition with mechanisms like symmetry breaking and gauge fixing, the QTTC model reframes consciousness as a structured modulation of a universal awareness field. It offers a middle path—neither reducible to neural computation nor dependent on immaterial metaphysics—that supports the possibility of interdisciplinary modeling across physics, cognitive science, and phenomenology.

Though speculative, this framework opens the door to new questions, novel testable hypotheses, and cross-disciplinary dialogue. In doing so, it aims to contribute not only to the philosophy of mind, but also to the emerging science of consciousness—by presenting a unified model that honors the complexity of both inner experience and physical reality.

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From Subjective Experience to Intention:
Beyond the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Ashkan Farhadi MD, MS, FACP, FACG

Abstract

The hard problem of consciousness traditionally asks how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) offers a conceptual reframing of this problem by treating awareness not as a passive emergent property but as a structural and transformative component of cognition. TTC identifies four stages of awareness: preselection, selection, transformation, and post-transformation. These stages trace the progression from raw experiential input to intentional action, memory formation, reflective reasoning, and decision-making. Within this model, awareness initiates volitional processes through Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) and integrates them through appropriation, a post-selection evaluative step. TTC thereby shifts the focus from the origin of awareness to its function, persistence, and role in shaping agency and consciousness. While not providing a solution to the hard problem, TTC expands its scope—redefining consciousness as a recursive, structured system centered on awareness, intention, and self-reflection. This reframes the hard problem not just as a puzzle of subjective origin, but as a question of persistence, action, and transformation—of how awareness structures consciousness and participates in shaping agency itself.

Keywords: Consciousness, Awareness, Trilogy Theory of Consciousness, Post-transformation awareness, Quantum field theory, Decision-making

Introduction

The “hard problem of consciousness,” as articulated by David Chalmers (1995), refers to the challenge of explaining how and why subjective experience arises from physical processes. While several theories attempt to bridge this explanatory gap, few explore what happens after awareness emerges. Most models focus on the genesis of experience—what it is like to be conscious—but do not investigate how awareness, once formed, transforms and guides cognitive functions such as memory, intention, and decision-making.

This paper expands on this gap by building upon the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) and stages of awareness and decision making and proposes that consciousness arises from the structured interaction of three elements: awareness, intention, and self-reflection (Farhadi, 2023a&b). Within this framework, awareness is not merely passive reception but initiates volitional mental activities through Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS). This process leads to memory encoding, reflective reasoning, and purposeful action.

Central to this exploration is the concept of the Post-Transformation Stage of Awareness—a phase in which subjective experience fuels a cascade of intentional cognitive functions including memorization, thought, reflection, and judgment. The manuscript also refer to quantum metaphoric framework of TTC, called quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (QTCC) (Farhadi, 2025b). Rather than treating consciousness as a terminal outcome, this model frames it as a recursive system in which awareness not only arises, but acts, persists, and restructures the mind.

By tracing the trajectory from raw subjective experience to structured intention, this paper argues that the hard problem of consciousness becomes even harder. It is not merely a question of origin, but of function, integration, and recursive modulation within a dynamic cognitive architecture.

The Process and Stages of Awareness in the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness

In TTC, awareness is the foundation of consciousness and the primary channel through which objective content is transformed into subjective experience. This transformation imbues cognition with “what it is like” qualities: sensation becomes perception (qualia), knowledge becomes knowing, memory becomes remembering, and emotion becomes feeling. This process gives rise to the felt qualities of perception, knowing, and meaning.

TTC breaks down the process of awareness into four distinct stages, culminating in a post-transformation phase that has traditionally received less attention (Figure 1). Yet, it is in this final stage that awareness reveals its full power—not merely as a portal to consciousness, but as an active process in shaping the cognitive mind.

1. Preselection Stage

At this foundational level, informational and emotional inputs are organized and prepared for awareness. The brain registers sensory stimuli, internal thoughts, and external cues, but no singular focus has yet emerged. This stage parallels late selection theories of attention (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1968), spotlight theory (Fernandez-Duque & Johnson, 2002), and unison theory (Desimone & Duncan, 1995), all of which acknowledge that much information is processed before reaching conscious awareness.

2. Selection Stage

In TTC, awareness does not arise automatically—it requires selection. TTC identifies two modes of selection:

·       Intentional Attention Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA), an intentional process unique to natural intelligence (NI) (Farhadi, 2021)

·       Algorithmic Attention as the result of Selection of Information Based on Algorithm (SIBA:), an automated, stimulus-driven process

Most theories of attention in neuroscience and philosophy describe attention as either a filter (Broadbent, 1971; Treisman, 1999) or a spotlight (Fernandez-Duque & Johnson, 2002), but they often overlook the role of agency. The competition and unison theories of attention could be the first to suggest a top-down biased selection of information by mind and imply the existence of a form of agency (Desimone & Duncan, 1995; Reynolds & Desimone, 2000), but TTC uniquely integrates intention with attention, suggesting that only DSIA captures the discretionary conscious attention. This distinguishes NI from AI, which relies purely on algorithmic attention (Farhadi, 2021).

3. Transformation Stage

Once selected, the chosen content undergoes a transition from objective data to subjective experience. This stage corresponds to the central mystery known as the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995): how does physical information in the brain give rise to felt experience?

In TTC, this transformation is modeled not as an emergent computational event, but as an ontological shift—a transition from information to experience. The process is biologically grounded but not yet biologically explained, underscoring the philosophical depth of the hard problem.

4. Post-Transformation Stage

This final stage is where awareness becomes functionally transformative. Once a subjective experience has been generated, it is not lost—it becomes the seed for a cascade of intentional mental operations—initiating memory encoding, reflective thought, judgment, focused attention, and ultimately, volitional decision-making. This stage defines the true functional role of awareness beyond perception.

What distinguishes the post-transformation stage is intentionality. While unconscious mental activities (e.g., automatic memory formation, habitual responses) may occur without awareness, the intentional counterparts of these functions—such as conscious deliberation, value-based reasoning, or meta-reflection—require awareness as their source. TTC posits that only Natural Intelligence (NI), not Artificial Intelligence (AI), possesses this intentional mode (Farhadi, 2025a).

Importantly, these intentional functions are not linear nor reflexive. Instead, awareness initiates a recursive, asymmetrical spiral of mental processes: as awareness drives intention, intention in turn shapes future awareness through selective attention (DSIA). This bidirectional, yet non-circular dynamic reshapes cognition, modulates memory, and contributes to the evolving architecture of the mind.

In this framework, awareness becomes structurally embedded—not only enabling cognition but actively shaping its organization over time. The post-transformation stage is thus where meaning arises, values consolidate, and conscious agency emerges. Without awareness, even complex cognitive operations remain devoid of meaning.

In this paradigm, awareness is not simply a fleeting illumination—it becomes a structural component, shaping the architecture of the mind. This recursive loop, where experience feeds back into the cognitive system, reveals that the true complexity of consciousness lies not just in its emergence, but in its integration and causal role in shaping further mental functions.

From one perspective, the post-transformation stage of awareness is analogous to the global broadcasting function of the Global Workspace Theory (Baars, 1988) and particularly the Neuronal GWT (Dehaene et al, 1998). From other vantage point, the recursive integration emphasized in Integrated Information Theory (Tononi, 2016) and Recurrent processing theory (Lamme, 2006) creating loops of feedback system between various stages of the decision-making and awareness that underlies the process of consciousness. However, TTC uniquely anchors this process in awareness-driven intention, not in abstract computation or network complexity. . It assigns a functional identity to awareness, treating it not as a byproduct of mental process, but as a driver of structured, intentional cognition.

It is important to understand that even though many mental processes are processed and executed automatically in the mind, only the one are recruited intentionally as the result of the post-transformation stage, are more defined, detail oriented and time-stamped, thanks to the self-reflection which is on its own the byproduct of combination of awareness and intention. This form of meta-awareness that creates the sense of self, when combined with awareness and intention result in consciousness.

Decision-Making as Post-Transformation Awareness: From Reasoning to Choice

Traditional models of decision-making often emphasize rational evaluation based on beliefs, desires, and expected outcomes. Yet, as Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality highlights, human decisions are shaped by cognitive limitations, biases, and contextual constraints. The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) reinterprets decision-making not merely as a rational computation but as a dynamic process rooted in awareness.

In traditional cognitive science, decision-making is described as a process guided by the evaluation of choices through beliefs, desires, and values (Slovic et al., 1977). However, Herbert Simon (1956) famously challenged this view by proposing the notion of bounded rationality, which argues that not all decisions result from elaborate reasoning, due to intrinsic limitations in human cognition. Depending on our capacity to represent and understand the complexity of a problem, our decisions vary in their degree of rationality. Additional constraints—such as cognitive biases, risk tolerance, or belief systems—further complicate the process, as explored in expected utility theory (Frisch & Baron, 1988; Briggs, 2019; Steele & Stefansson, 2020).

The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) reinterprets decision-making not merely as a rational computation but as a dynamic process rooted in awareness. In TTC, decision-making unfolds in three interconnected stages—preselection, selection, and postselection—each shaped by the recursive influence of awareness and intention (Figure 2).

1. Preselection Stage: The Formation of Intelligence

The decision-making process begins with a preselection stage, where the mind assembles, organizes, and processes two key forms of intelligence:

·       Informational Intelligence: This includes sensory input, motor feedback, memory, knowledge, belief systems, virtues, morals, desires, and active thought processes.

·       Emotional Intelligence: This encompasses mood, affect, bodily states (e.g., hunger, fatigue, pain), and self-worth.

These forms of intelligence are not processed in isolation. Other factors—such as genetic predispositions, early life experiences, and structural or biochemical attributes of the brain—also influence how this matrix of intelligence is constructed. The preselection stage involves algorithmic reasoning, where competing possibilities are weighed, and counter-reasoning, where internal challenges are raised to the most logical option. This internal dialogue is a hallmark of TTC and is largely unconscious.

TTC rejects the classical division between conscious and unconscious minds. It posits that the entire mental functions including reasoning process occurs within the unconscious mind, unless the process is on itself the subject of awareness. This position would be a different interpretation of models like Dijksterhuis’s (2004), which divide mental labor between conscious and unconscious systems. TTC argues instead that the mind is unconscious in its operations, and awareness arises only through deliberation during the preselection stage but awareness remains the main player during the selection stage of the decision-making.

2. Selection Stage: Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS)

After the matrix of reasoning and counter-reasoning is prepared and choices are made, Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) plays a critical role. This is where post-awareness information exerts a momentary but pivotal influence—by tipping the balance between available choices.

ABCS enables a choice to emerge not from computational optimization, but from awareness of one’s situatedness. This explains why a decision may not be the most rational or goal-aligned option, yet still be the one that is based on the subject's awareness at that point in time.

ABCS stands in contrast to purely unconscious mind operated Selection of Choice Based on Algorithm (SCBA) that is not uniquely tied to natural intelligence (NI) and is shared with artificial intelligence.

The TTC view aligns partially with naturalistic decision models (Drummond, 1991), which describe decision-making as a goal-prioritization and outcome-evaluation process since, those models do not account for the non-rational or counter-intuitive decisions that people often make—something captured more accurately in bounded rationality and in dynamic decision-making frameworks (Klein, 2008; Fox et al., 2003).

In particular, canonical theories of decision-making equate selection with commitment to a preferred option (Fox et al, 2013). But in TTC, commitment through ABCS may diverge from utility or preference. It is a moment of conscious engagement with experience—a unique signature of post-transformation awareness.

3. Postselection Stage: Appropriation Before Action

Before execution, TTC introduces a critical checkpoint: appropriation. This newly defined evaluative process is a newly defined analytical function of the mind that assesses the feasibility, practicality, and contextual appropriateness of the selected decision before it is acted upon. If contradictions or limitations are identified, the decision may be revised, postponed, or abandoned. The result of this evaluation—whether acceptance, revision, or rejection—is again made available to awareness, highlighting the recursive nature of conscious processing.

This appropriation stage serves as a kind of evolutionary safety net, preventing impractical or irrational decisions from translating into action. Unlike most classical or naturalistic decision models—which treat selection and execution as harmonized or inseparable—TTC emphasizes a clear boundary between decision and action. Other studies also indirectly support this separation by contemporary findings in neuroscience (Cos et al., 2011; Reynaud et al., 2020), which show that decision selection and motor execution follow independent neural principles.

Appropriation also resonates with models such as post-initiation deliberation (Burk et al., 2014) and cost-of-action evaluation (Hagura et al., 2017), where decisions are reevaluated even after initial commitment—a phenomenon akin to “changing one’s mind.” However, in TTC, this reassessment occurs before action, not as feedback from the action itself. This sharply distinguishes TTC from dynamic decision-making theories (Edwards, 1962; Fox et al., 2003) and rule-based systems (Newell & Simon, 1956), which update decisions based on the outcomes of previously executed choices.

Through these stages, TTC frames decision-making not as a one-way trajectory but as a recursive, awareness-dependent process. Even habitual actions can be intercepted and redirected by awareness. This capacity for override—absent in artificial systems—marks the depth of conscious agency.

Autopilot Decisions and SCBA

Not all decisions require the involvement of awareness. Both in artificial intelligence (AI) and natural intelligence (NI), many decisions follow SCBA—a purely automatic, stimulus-driven process. These autopilot decisions may or may not bypass reasoning, enabling reflexive or rapid responses when urgency demands speed over deliberation. Conditioning is a practical example of transitioning from ABCS to SCBA that works toward efficiency by removing the awareness as the instrumental factor in decision-making in repeated decisions (Farhadi, 2025c). These processes do not invoke the "I" or self-reflection and are primarily reactive. While they may begin as awareness-based actions, with repetition they become automated and habitual.

Unlike Artificial Intelligence (AI), which operates entirely via algorithmic decision-making, Natural Intelligence (NI) possesses the capacity to override SCBA through awareness. This ability to interrupt an automated behavior and insert volitional choice is a hallmark of consciousness.

Some proponents argue that BDI agents (Belief-Desire-Intention systems) in AI emulate higher-order decision-making by generating internal goals and updating their strategies based on feedback (Bratman, 1987; Rao & Georgeff, 1995) . However, these remain fundamentally algorithmic. Even self-modifying code operates under preset parameters. In contrast, awareness in NI allows for discontinuity—an intentional break in automated processing that opens space for reconsideration, novelty, and freedom.

TTC emphasizes that while SCBA is essential for efficiency, it must remain subordinate to awareness. When awareness fades or is bypassed entirely, the system risks becoming rigid, reactive, and prone to error. Conscious agency arises from the ability to recognize when a reflexive action no longer serves its context—and to change course accordingly.

The Intertwine Action of Awareness and Decision-making in TTC

In TTC and its quantum extension QTTC, awareness and decision-making are not treated as distinct sequential processes but as intricately interwoven functions that co-create the architecture of conscious behavior. Awareness is both the initiator and evaluator of choice, while decision-making serves as the expression and extension of structured awareness. This reciprocal influence reframes agency as a dynamic interplay rather than a linear command chain.

Awareness plays a crucial role in decision-making through Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS), in which the mind selects among potential responses based on the felt sense of subjective coherence, not mere logic or optimization. Simultaneously, Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA)—the volitional filtering mechanism—ensures that the informational and emotional content made available to awareness is relevant, intentional, and aligned with higher-order goals. Through this dual dynamic, awareness is both shaped by prior discretion and immediately generative of intention (Farhadi,2025d).

However, this model does not imply a simple feedback loop. Instead, the relationship between awareness and decision-making forms an asymmetrical, non-reflexive spiral, in which each new layer of subjective experience alters the conditions for future awareness and choices (see Figure 3). Every act of ABCS actively shapes the informational matrix that feeds into DSIA in subsequent moments. Over time, this spiral enables growth in cognitive complexity, emotional intelligence, and reflective depth—traits characteristic of maturing consciousness.

This entwined structure has significant implications for models of moral reasoning, creative insight, and psychological flexibility. It demonstrates that volition is not a mere output of awareness, but its trajectory—continually modulated by recursive attention and evolving self-context. In this view, the autonomy of natural intelligence lies not in its capacity to follow rules, but in its ability to bend, revise, or reinvent them based on emergent awareness.

From Awareness to Consciousness and selfhood

According to TTC, consciousness arises not merely from the presence of awareness from sensory or perceptual input, but through the dynamic interplay of these three faculties.

·       Awareness in this model refers to the raw subjective experience—the “being present” to stimuli or internal states, devoid of agency or judgment.

·       Intention is the directional force that transforms awareness into action, rooted in the individual's capacity for volitional choice.

·       Self-reflection is the result of the intertwine action of awareness and intention creating "I." This transformation from experience to identity marks the genesis of selfhood. In TTC, the "I" is not a static metaphysical entity but a functional frame generated through recursive awareness and intention a form of meta-cognition of the mind providing the ability to observe, evaluate, and learn from its own states and decisions through recurrent feedback loops of intention and awareness. In QTTC, this process is metaphorically mapped to gauge fixing as it will be elaborated below, where awareness selects a stable reference point within a fluid field, grounding the emergent identity within an ever-shifting stream of subjective input.

What distinguishes TTC is its proposal that awareness alone is not consciousness, but rather the foundation upon which the higher-order functions of intention and reflection operate. In this sense, awareness is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness. This foundational distinction opens the door to examining what happens after awareness—how it evolves, integrates, and participates in shaping the mind. This redefinition pushes the boundary of the hard problem of consciousness beyond the emergence of qualia, asking instead: how this experience begins to act, to organize, and to influence cognition through recursive feedback into the mental architecture and appropriated into a subjective identity?

Extending TTC to QTTC: A Field-Based Framework for Structured Awareness

While TTC provides a cognitive structure grounded in awareness, intention, and self-reflection, its extension—Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (QTTC)—offers a metaphorical, field-based ontology inspired by Quantum Field Theory (QFT) (Farhadi, 2025b). In this view, consciousness arises from dynamic modulation of a Universal Awareness Field (UAF)—a timeless, unstructured substrate of potential experience.

When modulated by intention and attention, the UAF produces structured awareness in the form of noëtons—excitations analogous to particles in QFT. Intention acts as symmetry breaking, initiating directional modulation, while the emergence of selfhood is framed as gauge fixing, establishing a reference point for subjective experience.

As awareness accumulates, the field encodes a configuration history—shaping future awareness independent of neural memory. This may explain intuitive insight or universal awareness.

QTTC does not claim physical quantum processes in the brain, but proposes a structural isomorphism between cognitive functions and field dynamics. Speculative hypotheses suggest cellular interfaces—such as the senome (Baluška et al., 2018), microtubules (Hameroff & Penrose, 1996), or DNA structures (Myakishev-Rempel, 2019)—may mediate between biology and awareness, though this remains unverified.

Conceptual Reframing of the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Neither TTC nor QTTC claims to solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness, but they offer a conceptual reframing, where awareness is not a passive or emergent epiphenomenon, but a transformative and structural component of the cognitive system. In particular, they shift the problem from how physical processes generate experience to how a structured awareness, once forms, it recursively acts upon the mind through intention and post-transformation processes such as memory encoding, comparison, reasoning, thought provocation, and self-reflection. This reframing opens new philosophical and experimental avenues—especially when coupled with ongoing inquiry into the interface between biological systems and fundamental physical principles.

Conclusion

Both TTC and its quantum field-based counterpart QTTC view awareness not as a sole product of neural computation or emergent complexity, but as a structural component of the cognitive function. In doing so, they shift the central question of the hard problem—from how matter gives rise to mind, to how structured awareness shapes, sustains, and transforms conscious experience.

Through the delineation of distinct stages of awareness—preselection, selection, transformation, and post-transformation—this model traces a recursive journey from subjective experience to intention, memory, thought, and ultimately, identity. The inclusion of appropriation and ABCS as mechanisms of volitional choice marks a significant departure from algorithmic or reflexive accounts of decision-making. Furthermore, QTTC’s metaphorical alignment with principles from quantum theory offers a conceptual vocabulary to model the fluid, non-local, and dynamic nature of awareness and reframes it as a structured interaction between the mind and a Universal Awareness Field.

Neither TTC nor QTTC attempt to solve the hard problem by reducing consciousness to a particular brain mechanism. Instead, it provides a new conceptual framework—one that integrates cognitive functions, and philosophical insight to reconsider the structure and function of consciousness. In this light, the hard problem becomes not only more complex but also more expansive—inviting a deeper understanding of what it means to be aware, intentional, and self-reflective in a universe that may itself be imbued with awareness.

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Acknowledgment:

•       Funding: N/A. The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

•        

•       Conflict of Interests: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

•       Author confirms that the material presented in this manuscript has not been previously published, nor is it simultaneously under consideration by any other journal.

•       Author's Contribution: The manuscript has only one author.

From Awareness to Consciousness:
A Novel Exploration Through Dreaming

Ashkan Farhadi MD, MS, FACP, FACG

Abstract

The distinction between awareness and consciousness is often blurred across scientific, philosophical, and psychological discourse. In this manuscript, I propose that what is commonly framed as the Hard Problem of Consciousness is more accurately a Hard Problem of Awareness. Drawing on the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC), I argue that consciousness is not a singular phenomenon but a structured process composed of three interdependent components: awareness, intention, and self-reflection. Using a personal dream episode as an entry point, I explore how awareness can exist independently of volitional engagement or selfhood, particularly during REM sleep. Neurophysiological evidence—including REM atonia, lucid dreaming, and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder—demonstrates that subjective awareness may be vivid and immersive without leading to conscious action or reflective identity. The TTC framework offers a layered model for understanding these distinctions and highlights the critical role of post-transformation operations, such as Awareness-Based Choice Selection  and appropriation, in the emergence of consciousness. This model is further supported and extended by the Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness, which situates awareness as a universal, field-based foundation. Together, these theories help clarify how and why we can be aware without being conscious, especially during sleep.

Keywords:

Awareness, Consciousness, Volition, Decision-making, Dreaming, REM Sleep, Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC), Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (QTTC), Lucid Dreaming, REM Atonia, Hard Problem of Consciousness

Introduction

It was early morning, and I was deep in sleep, immersed in a vivid dream. In that dream, I found myself speaking with a childhood friend about a topic that had preoccupied my thoughts for days. The colors, the dialogue, the setting—all were strange, and yet none of it felt unusual at the time. Everything appeared real. The meditation music from my Alexa played clearly in the background. I felt cold in the dream, but it didn’t bother me. I was present—fully immersed in the moment. And yet, I wasn’t conscious.

I awoke—perhaps stirred by the Alexa alarm or by the cold, as the blanket had slipped off during the night. A cool autumn breeze drifted in through a cracked window, and the birds outside were singing the first songs of the day. In that moment, a striking realization occurred: just seconds earlier, I had been fully aware, immersed in a rich subjective experience—an intricate blend of real sensory input and mind-generated virtual scenery. And yet, I had not been conscious in the full sense of the word.

While dreaming, I had experienced awareness—without a sense of self, and without a sense of time. The cold and the alarm music had permeated the dreamscape, but the birdsong was entirely filtered out. Upon waking, the dream’s timeless, selfless immersion was abruptly replaced by a time-bound, self-aware experience: I felt the cold, reached for the blanket, turned off the alarm, and began to pay attention to the birds outside.

This moment of clarity inspired the writing of this essay. I aim to articulate the often-overlooked—and frequently misunderstood—distinction between awareness and consciousness, two terms that are commonly used interchangeably across scientific, philosophical, and psychological discourse. I argue that what is widely referred to today as the Hard Problem of Consciousness is more accurately a Hard Problem of Awareness.

To clarify this distinction, I turn to the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) (Farhadi, 2023a,b). According to TTC, awareness is the subjective experience that serves as the foundation for consciousness. However, consciousness only arises when two additional components are engaged:

·      Intention, or Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS)—the mental act of selecting among perceived possibilities.

·      Self-reflection, which emerges through the recursive interplay between awareness and intention, giving rise to a sense of self.

In my dream, although I was aware, I was unable to act or make intentional choices—nor could I reflect upon myself. My awareness lacked agency, volition, and self-reflection.

One might ask: what caused that early morning dream to rise into awareness—or perhaps, to be retained in memory after waking? The answer may lie in two algorithmic processes:

·      Selection of Intelligence Based on Algorithm (SIBA), a filtering mechanism independent of conscious intention.

·      Selection of Choice Based on Algorithm (SCBA), an autopilot decision-making process.

These are hallmark features of the unconscious mind, and are foundational to the operation of artificial intelligence (AI) (Farhadi, 2021). It was only when the discomfort of cold and the rising volume of the alarm crossed a certain threshold that I was awakened. And it was only then that consciousness returned—along with the capacities for choice, action, and self-reflection.

Through the lens of TTC, the following distinctions are emphasized:

·      Awareness is not consciousness.

·      Awareness is a subjective experience and the groundwork for consciousness—but consciousness begins only after awareness transforms into volitional action and self-reflective thought through recursive interplay of ABCS and Discretionary Selection of Intelligence of Awareness (DSIA).

·      In essence, awareness is selfless, whereas consciousness requires the emergence of self through intention and reflective engagement.

The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC): A Layered Model of the Mind

The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) is a cognitive framework that conceptualizes consciousness not as a singular event, but as a structured process composed of three interdependent yet sequential components:

1.     Awareness – the capacity to perceive or experience any form of intelligence arising from internal or external stimuli, as well as various mental functions.

2.     Intention – the mental drive or impulse to act, initiated in response to awareness.

3.     Self-reflection – the capacity to observe oneself as the subject of both experience and action.

According to TTC, a complete conscious episode emerges only when all three components are simultaneously engaged. Awareness alone is not sufficient for consciousness; it must be followed by intention and self-reflection to form the full construct of conscious experience.

Stages of Awareness in TTC

TTC further defines awareness as a multi-stage, dynamic process, evolving through distinct cognitive transitions. Awareness is not merely a byproduct of neural computation but a structured interface between objective mental processing and subjective experience. This process unfolds across four sequential stages:

1. Preselection Stage

Raw information from the external world or internal states is received and processed to generate intelligences—units of information that are cognitively structured and prepared for awareness. These intelligences compete for access to awareness through various filtering mechanisms.

2. Selection Stage

Among these intelligences, one is selected for awareness. This selection can occur in two ways:

·      Through intentional attention, guided by conscious volition, known as  DSIA.

·      Or through automatic, unconscious filtering, referred to as SIBA.

3. Transformation Stage

The selected intelligence, once filtered and processed by the brain's objective systems, is transformed into a subjective experience. This is the critical moment when objectivity gives way to subjectivity—when cognition becomes awareness. The result may take perceptual, emotional, or abstract cognitive forms.

4. Post-Transformation Stage

At this stage, awareness becomes available for volitional engagement. A wide range of mental functions may now be executed through  ABCS, including:

·      Evaluation

·      Memorization

·      Reasoning and comparison

·      Emotional tagging

·      Judging and decision-making

These operations are governed by free will and intentional reflection, forming the basis of conscious cognition.

While some cognitive theories refer to these operations as meta-awareness or “thinking about thinking,” TTC considers them to be the post-transformation layer that initiates consciousness. In this framework, consciousness arises only when awareness becomes coupled with intention and reflective self-monitoring.

Stages of Decision-Making in TTC

In parallel with its model of awareness, the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) outlines a three-stage model of decision-making. This model reflects the same structural logic as the awareness process and demonstrates how choices emerge from the interaction of awareness, intention, and reflective evaluation.

1. Preselection Stage

In this initial stage, various pieces of information are actively processed through reasoning, counter-reasoning, and contextual framing. This cognitive activity generates a primary choice option, along with alternative possibilities, all of which are held in a mental space of consideration. These options are shaped by both current awareness and past experiences retrieved from memory.

2. Selection Stage

At the core of decision-making lies the selection process, where one option is chosen among the available alternatives. This selection occurs through two distinct mechanisms:

·      ABCS— a conscious and volitional process rooted in active awareness and intention. ABCS involves deliberate evaluation and is associated with a sense of agency.

·      SCBA — an automatic, unconscious process driven by prior conditioning or habitual responses. SCBA operates without direct awareness, often resembling algorithmic or rule-based decision-making found in artificial intelligence systems (Farhadi, 2025a).

ABCS signifies the activation of intentionality, while SCBA reflects streamlined efficiency at the cost of conscious involvement.

3. Post-Selection Appropriation

Before a chosen option is executed, it enters the appropriation stage—a reflective verification process. Here, the selected decision is assessed against:

·      External reality and current context

·      Predicted consequences

·      Emotional responses

·      Internal belief systems and moral frameworks

Only after this alignment is confirmed does the decision proceed to action. Over time, repeated engagement with ABCS can lead to habit formation, whereby decisions become internalized and shift to the SCBA pathway (Farhadi, 2025d). This transition represents a cognitive efficiency mechanism that bypasses awareness once the decision-making process is well-conditioned (Farhadi, 2025c).

This three-stage model highlights TTC’s core insight: conscious decision-making is not a single act, but a layered progression from awareness to intention to reflection. It is through this layering that true agency emerges—distinguishing conscious action from both reflex and automation.

Awareness, Volition, and Volitional Action in Dreaming

Dreaming provides a natural laboratory for dissecting the components of consciousness. Scientific research increasingly supports the notion that a form of altered awareness—or proto-consciousness—emerges during sleep. In particular, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is associated with vivid, immersive dreams characterized by a strong sense of presence and perception. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that brain regions involved in primary sensory awareness remain active during REM sleep, while regions responsible for executive control and self-monitoring, notably the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, show marked downregulation (Hobson & Pace-Schott, 2002; Siclari et al., 2017).

Dreams can occur during both REM and non-REM sleep, yet in both cases, the dreamer typically lacks deliberative choice or self-reflective evaluation. One of the clearest physiological demonstrations of the distinction between awareness and consciousness arises from the suppression of voluntary muscle movement during REM sleep. This suppression, known as REM atonia, is a protective mechanism that prevents the dreamer from physically enacting internal experiences. Although the motor cortex remains active during this stage, voluntary commands are inhibited at the brainstem or spinal cord level, enforced by neurotransmitters such as GABA and glycine (Brooks & Peever, 2008). Thus, even when the dreamer internally generates an intention to act—to run, speak, or reach—the execution is blocked by brainstem-mediated neural gating (Lu et al., 2006).

More nuanced insight into the relationship between awareness and volition comes from two phenomena: lucid dreaming and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD). In lucid dreaming, individuals become aware that they are dreaming, and this state is accompanied by a partial restoration of volitional control and metacognitive awareness. Electrophysiological recordings have shown that EEG patterns during lucid dreams resemble wakefulness, though with distinctive features such as increased delta and theta coherence, whereas full wakefulness is dominated by alpha coherence (Voss et al., 2009). Functional neuroimaging studies further demonstrate increased blood flow to frontal cortical areas involved in self-awareness and higher-order cognitive control during lucid dreams (Filevich et al., 2015).

Lucid dreaming, therefore, offers a compelling empirical illustration of TTC’s model, demonstrating the transition from raw awareness to full conscious experience—a shift made possible through the reactivation of intention and self-reflection. It bridges the gap between the first and final components of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness, showing that awareness alone is insufficient for consciousness unless it is integrated with the volitional and reflective faculties.

Studies on volitional actions during lucid dreaming have also shown that, despite full-body paralysis, dreamers can intentionally control certain muscle groups, particularly the extraocular muscles and facial muscles. Pre-agreed eye movement signals (e.g., left-right-left patterns) and facial twitches have been successfully used to communicate with researchers during lucid dreams, confirming that a rudimentary form of volition can remain intact internally, even when motor execution is largely suppressed (LaBerge et al., 1981; Konkoly et al., 2021).

In contrast, REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) provides a pathological mirror to normal REM atonia. In RBD, the typical muscle paralysis fails, and individuals are able to act out their dreams—sometimes violently. These episodes confirm that motor programs initiated during dreams are real, and that the suppression of their execution is an active process (Schenck et al., 1993). RBD thus underscores a key insight from TTC: intent alone is not sufficient for conscious action. For consciousness to arise, volition must pass through the recursive loops of reflection and appropriation, as outlined in the post-selection phase of TTC’s decision-making model.

In sum, findings from lucid dreaming and REM sleep disorders reinforce the TTC framework. Awareness during dreaming—no matter how vivid or rich—does not amount to consciousness unless it is joined by volitional activity and self-reflective processing. These empirical insights support the view that the essential signature of consciousness lies in the post-transformation integration of awareness with intention and selfhood.

Awareness and Consciousness During Sleep and Dream: A TTC Perspective

The Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC) provides a structured framework for interpreting cognitive phenomena observed in neurophysiological studies of sleep. During deep sleep, although the brain continues to receive and process information, much of it—except for critical stimuli such as pain, extreme temperature, or alarm sounds—is filtered out before entering active awareness. In these phases, while intelligences may still form, they rarely reach subjective awareness unless they surpass a critical threshold.

In contrast, during dreaming, the brain remains cognitively active. It constructs immersive, hallucinatory, virtual-reality-like narratives—often complete with rich sensory, emotional, and narrative elements. According to TTC, this aligns with the Preselection Stage, where mental intelligences are formed through ongoing internal processing and stimulus integration.

In the Selection Stage, these intelligences compete for awareness. In the absence of high-priority sensory input, the internally generated dream scenarios are typically selected through SIBA —an automatic, unconscious process. Unless overridden by external, critical stimuli, dreams proceed to awareness by default.

During the Transformation Stage, selected intelligences are converted into subjective experiences. This is the point at which the objective neural representations of the dream are transformed into vivid mental experiences—visual, emotional, and cognitive patterns that fully engage the mind.

However, the most critical difference emerges in the Post-Transformation Stage. In waking consciousness, this stage is marked by intentional operations such as reflection, reasoning, memory encoding, judgment, and decision-making, all governed by ABCS. During dreaming, however, this final stage is radically altered or suppressed. The dreamer may perceive implausible events or illogical narratives without questioning their validity, highlighting a fundamental absence of reflective thought or judgment. Without the engagement of intention or identity, the mind experiences awareness, but not consciousness in the full sense.

This observation supports TTC’s central claim: awareness is a selfless, structured, subjective experience that precedes intention and identity—but is not sufficient for consciousness.

Further support for this model arises from its quantum extension: the Quantum Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (QTTC). QTTC metaphorically interprets TTC through Quantum Field Theory (QFT) by describing awareness as quantized excitations of a vacuum field—the Universal Awareness Field (UAF) (Farhadi, 2025b). In this model, awareness is foundational and non-local, while consciousness is the localized, individuated expression that emerges when awareness is shaped by intentional focus and reflective selfhood.

Even in the altered post-transformation stage of dreaming, the automatic functions of unconscious mind such as SCBA are active, which enables reflexive actions like storing dream fragments in short-term memory or producing minor motor twitches. However, the suppression of ABCS during sleep prevents intentional, volitional engagement.

Lucid dreaming, however, presents a unique exception—an arena in which some of the volitional mechanisms of TTC re-emerge. In lucid dreams, individuals exhibit signs of ABCS activation, including awareness-based choice selection and intentional control, yet often remain unable to execute those choices externally due to the lack of post-selection appropriation. This disconnection between intention and execution points to an incomplete or interrupted decision-making cycle. Still, rare cases of successful communication with lucid dreamers—via eye movement patterns or facial muscle responses—suggest the presence of partial appropriation mechanisms not yet fully explained by the current TTC model.

Finally, the transition from dreaming to wakefulness illustrates the TTC pathway in real time. In the earlier example of awakening from a dream, the cold discomfort and alarm music crossed a sensory threshold via SCBA, triggering the shift into wakefulness. Upon awakening, DSIA is re-engaged. Intentional attention is restored, leading to volitional actions: listening to birdsong, locating the source of cold, assigning time, and reestablishing a sense of self. These processes mark the return of consciousness, fully reassembled through the post-transformation stage of awareness and the appropriation stage of decision-making.

In summary, TTC offers a compelling cognitive framework for distinguishing awareness from consciousness, and for mapping the gradual reassembly of conscious experience during transitions between sleep and wakefulness. It highlights how volition and self-reflection—not awareness alone—are essential for consciousness to arise.

Conclusion

This essay has explored the complex relationship between awareness, intention, and self-reflection through the lens of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC). Drawing on personal experience, theoretical modeling, and empirical neuroscience, I have argued that awareness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness. Dreaming, particularly during REM sleep, offers a natural window into this distinction: the dreamer may be deeply aware yet incapable of deliberate action or self-reflection.

Neurophysiological phenomena such as REM atonia, lucid dreaming, and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD)further support the TTC model by illustrating how the post-transformational stages of awareness and decision-making are either suppressed or selectively re-engaged during sleep. These findings underscore that volition and reflective selfhood are essential for the full emergence of consciousness.

The integration of TTC with its quantum extension, QTTC, suggests a broader ontological view in which awareness arises from a universal, field-like substrate—the Universal Awareness Field (UAF)—while consciousness emerges through the localization of awareness into intention and identity.

In reframing the hard problem of consciousness as a problem of structured awareness, TTC not only provides a novel framework for interpreting mental activity during sleep, but also offers a bridge between cognitive science and the phenomenology of inner experience. It calls for a more nuanced understanding of consciousness—one that begins not with waking, but with awareness itself.

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Acknowledgment:

•       Funding: N/A. The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

•        

•       Conflict of Interests: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

•       Author confirms that the material presented in this manuscript has not been previously published, nor is it simultaneously under consideration by any other journal.

•       Author's Contribution: The manuscript has only one author.

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Awareness, Automation, and the Illusion of Free Will:
 Rethinking Libet Through Trilogy Theory

Ashkan Farhadi MD, MS, FACP, FACG

Abstract

This article explores learning, behavioral conditioning, and the neuroscience of volition through the lens of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC), a model that distinguishes between awareness-based decision-making and algorithm-driven automation. The essay draws parallels to Pavlovian conditioning and expands into a broader framework that redefines learning as a transition from Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) to Selection of Choice Based on Algorithm (SCBA). TTC outlines a three-stage decision-making process—preselection (integration of informational and emotional intelligence), selection (where awareness momentarily guides choice via ABCS), and post-selection consolidation (the encoding of behavior into internalized algorithms).

Incorporating a reinterpretation of Benjamin Libet’s famous 1983 experiment, the article argues that what was previously taken as evidence against free will may instead reflect a misidentification of SCBA as volitional choice. Libet’s participants engaged in repetitive tasks that likely bypassed true awareness-based intention, leading to the false conclusion that unconscious neural activity precedes all decision-making. TTC clarifies how awareness initiates intention and remains active through feedback loops, offering an updated model of volition that reconciles neuroscience with subjective experience.

Finally, the article proposes experimental approaches—such as digital piano performance tasks and neuroimaging—to empirically observe the transition from conscious choice to algorithmic behavior. By reframing learning and conditioning as transformations of awareness into structured behavioral automation, TTC offers a new framework for understanding how the mind is wired—and how it can be consciously rewired for adaptability, growth, and agency.

Keywords: Trilogy Theory of Consciousness, Decision-making, Learning, Conditioning, Habit forming

A Forgotten Pond Story

I hadn't cleaned my backyard pond for quite some time—years, in fact. Nor had I fed the fish, assuming they were long gone. After all, neglect over a couple of years should have been enough to wipe out the tiny ecosystem I once nurtured. But when I finally decided to clean the pond, I was surprised to find that a few small mosquito fish had survived. Encouraged, I added a few new goldfish to the pond and, out of habit more than hope, resumed my old routine: feeding them every morning before heading to work.

In the past, the fish would eagerly gather near the surface at the first sign of me approaching, anticipating food. But now, things were different. The fish scattered at my presence, hiding under shrubs and avoiding the food entirely.

Still, I knew from experience—and a bit of faith—that this would change with persistence. And I was right. After about ten days, I noticed a subtle shift. One or two fish no longer fled when I neared the pond. Instead, they gathered where the food would drop and began nibbling even while I stood nearby. Each day, more fish joined them, until soon enough, they all swam toward the food the moment I approached—racing, competing, no longer seeing me as a threat, but as a signal.

This progression was strikingly familiar. It reminded me of Pavlov’s classic conditioning experiments, in which dogs learned to associate the sound of a bell with food. But this wasn’t just a replication of Pavlov—it was a small backyard mirror of a broader truth: learning and adaptation are foundational to both animal and human behavior.

What I witnessed in my backyard pond was more than just a behavioral shift in a group of fish — it was a living reenactment of one of the most well-known experiments in behavioral psychology. Over a century ago, Ivan Pavlov observed similar learning processes in dogs, laying the foundation for our modern understanding of classical conditioning. His work revealed that, through repetition and association, animals could learn to respond to previously neutral stimuli as if they were biologically significant. This was the first glimpse into how the external world rewires the internal patterns of response.

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov's Experiment)

In his famous experiment, Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. Initially, the bell meant nothing to them. But over time, the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone — even when no food was presented. This anticipatory reaction, known as a conditioned response, emerged from the association between the neutral stimulus (bell) and the unconditioned stimulus (food). Pavlov’s work was revolutionary not only because it explained animal learning, but because it offered a scientific model for how habits and reflexes are formed through repetition, bypassing volitional choice or modifying a complex reflexes.

Since Pavlov’s time, countless studies have expanded our understanding of learning, memory, and behavioral conditioning in both animals and humans. A 2018 study published in Nature Neuroscience demonstrated how synaptic plasticity in the amygdala supports the formation of fear conditioning, linking emotional learning to specific neural circuits (Johansen et al., 2010). Another recent paper in Neuron (2021) identified how dopamine signals not only reinforce learning but also encode the transition from deliberate to automatic behavior, essentially capturing the neurobiological process underlying behavioral automation (Takahashi et al., 2017). In humans, fMRI studies (Doll et al., 2015) show how regions like the prefrontal cortex are active during initial choice-making but become less involved once behaviors become habitual — again supporting the view that awareness-based decision-making can shift into unconscious, conditioned patterns.

These findings all point to a central idea: Learning is not merely acquiring knowledge — it is the process by which awareness becomes encoded into patterns, often freeing the mind for new challenges while delegating old ones to automatic routines.

The Decision-Making Process: From Awareness to Automation

Traditional models of decision-making emphasize rational analysis guided by beliefs, desires, and values (Slovic et al., 1977). But as Herbert Simon (1956) argued, human decision-making is bounded by the mind’s limitations—what he called bounded rationality. Because of these constraints, our decisions often rely on approximations, shortcuts, and intuition, rather than on exhaustive reasoning. Factors such as cognitive bias, emotion, upbringing, and even risk appetite influence the outcome of our choices, as elaborated in various models like expected utility theory (Frisch & Baron, 1988; Steele & Stefansson, 2020).

From the perspective of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness (TTC), awareness is the base for decision-making but on its own unfolds across four distinct stages—a framework that explains how intentional attention and Discretionary Selection of Intelligence for Awareness (DSIA) prepare the basis for free-willed, awareness-based decisions (Figure 1). In addition, as depicted in Figure 2, the process of decision-making is composed of three stages: preselection, selection, and post-selection appropriation (Farhadi, 2023). These stages help us understand how the transition from free-willed, awareness-based decisions to habitual, automated ones occurs through the shift from Awareness-Based Choice Selection (ABCS) to Selection of Choice Based on Algorithm (SCBA), ultimately leading to Stimulus-Conditioned Behavioral Automation for repeated actions (Figure 3).

1. Preselection: The Stage of Mental Preparation

In TTC, the decision-making process begins with the preselection stage, where the mind prepares the groundwork for a decision by synthesizing a matrix of two core intelligences:

Informational Intelligence: Data drawn from sensory inputs, memories, acquired knowledge, beliefs, desires, and logical reasoning.

Emotional Intelligence: Signals from moods, physiological states (pain, hunger, fatigue), self-esteem, and affective memory.

These elements interact dynamically with foundational influences such as genetics, personal history, and neurobiological constraints. During this stage, the mind doesn't simply compute—it reasons and also counter-reasons, generating alternative narratives and outcomes. This dual processing is essential: without internal contrast and tension between options, true choice becomes meaningless.

This model extends and improves upon naturalistic decision models (e.g., Drummond, 1991), which describe how goals are clarified and options evaluated. Yet those models often lack a mechanism for internal contradiction or counter-arguments—something TTC recognizes as fundamental to decision-making in natural intelligence.

TTC also reframes the conscious–unconscious debate. Where some theorists (e.g., Dijksterhuis, 2004) attribute decision efficiency to unconscious mental capacity, TTC treats the entire mind as unconscious in its operational logic. Only when the selection mechanism (ABCS) is activated does awareness step in and tip the scale.

2. Selection: The Role of Awareness in Choosing

In the selection stage, the processed matrix of possible choices enters awareness—not all at once, but selectively, filtered through the mechanism TTC calls Discretionary Selection of Information for Awareness. This filtering explains why some aspects of a decision are vividly clear while others remain vague or inaccessible.

Here,  ABCS comes into play. It is not simply rational calculation but an emergent moment when awareness influences the final decision. This means that the chosen option is not always the most logical, advantageous, or even goal-aligned—it is the one that resonates most within the momentary field of awareness.

Consider this example: You're looking for a job and ask a friend to go through classified ads and highlight potential roles. Your friend uses a logical, rule-based algorithm to flag every opportunity that matches your skills (this is SCBA—algorithmic selection). But as you scan the list, you instantly cross off a few options—say, a ballet dancer or nightclub bouncer—because your awareness of yourself renders those options meaningless. Your awareness didn't compute those eliminations; it simply knew. That shift—from logic to insight—is the defining mark of ABCS.

This selection mechanism, bounded by what DSIA allows into awareness, explains Simon’s bounded rationality from a fresh angle. Rationality is not inherently limited—it is filtered, not fully disclosed to awareness at once.

3. From Selection to Automation: Enter SCBA

While ABCS reflects the free-willed, awareness-informed decision, repeated experience tends to shift decision-making toward  SCBA. In SCBA, selection of choices is governed by internalized algorithms—patterns formed by past choices that now operate with minimal or no input from awareness. This is the hallmark of learning and habit formation.

Naturalistic models, such as those proposed by Klein (2015) or Fox et al. (2013), emphasize commitment and alignment with goals in decision selection. However, TTC goes further by distinguishing automated commitment (SCBA) from conscious selection (ABCS). While traditional theories might see repeated choice as deeper commitment, TTC shows it as a migration from awareness selection of choice to automation—from conscious deliberation to internalized pattern.

3. Post-Selection Appropriation: Encoding the Pattern

The third stage in TTC’s decision-making model is post-selection appropriation—the process by which the selected choice, are appropriated for execution through being reinforced, modified, or discarded based on its outcome and subjective salience. This is where learning begins to take root.

Following the moment of decision (via ABCS), the mind monitors the feedback from that choice. This includes not only the anticipation or prediction of the external consequences (reward, punishment, success, failure), but also the internal affective response—satisfaction, regret, validation, doubt. These experiences are encoded into memory and gradually shape the matrix of informational and emotional intelligence for similar future decisions.

Critically, repetition of similar decisions in similar contexts leads to neural and cognitive efficiency. What was once a deliberative process becomes streamlined. Over time, the awareness-driven act of choosing is replaced by an automated selection process—a hallmark of SCBA. In this phase, awareness becomes increasingly bypassed. The input (stimulus) activates a familiar pattern of behavior (response) with minimal conscious involvement.

This transition is not a flaw—it is an adaptive feature of natural intelligence. It reflects the system’s attempt to conserve energy and time by relegating known responses to internalized algorithms. It is how we form habits, develop skills, and create routines. It is also how conditioning works—turning ABCS into SCBA through feedback and repetition.

Bridging Into Conditioning and Learning

When viewed through this lens, classical conditioning (like Pavlov's experiment) and even complex human learning can be understood as a gradual reorganization of the decision-making architecture. What begins as an exploratory, awareness-based process (ABCS) becomes a refined, efficient algorithm (SCBA) once the environment proves that this pattern works.

One may consider the Pavlov’s experiment was a compiled events of ABCS and an internal visceal reflex when the food result in salivation. In this scenario, the mind already had an inherent SCBA of secreting Saliva at the site of the food which was expanded to more complex form of SCBA. During the process  the dog’s first few salivations in response to the bell were likely preceded by confusion, attentiveness, and awareness. But after several pairings, the response became immediate, unthinking, automatic—an SCBA embedded through repeated ABCS. This same principle applies whether it's training a goldfish to gather at the surface or teaching a child to look both ways before crossing a street.

Thus, TTC reframes conditioning and learning not as mechanical operations, but as evolutions of conscious engagement, where free-willed choice is the raw material from which automation is forged.

The Purpose of Repetition: Efficiency Through Internalization

Repetition is not merely a mechanical loop—it is the engine of learning. In the context of TTC, each repeated choice made through  ABCS contributes to a gradual migration toward  SCBA. This shift reflects a profound evolutionary strategy: to improve efficiency and speed of an action through a process of automation.

The human mind is not designed to make every decision consciously. Doing so would be mentally exhausting and biologically inefficient. From tying shoelaces to driving familiar routes or speaking native languages, much of our daily functioning is automated. But this automation did not appear overnight—it was built upon countless moments of conscious engagement, each one strengthening the behavioral circuit.

In this perspective, learning is the process of encoding awareness-based patterns into algorithmic structures. This encoding allows behaviors to become faster, more reliable, and less demanding on the cognitive skills, reserving the awareness and cognition for more meaningful of novel tasks. Importantly, this is not a loss of intelligence—it is a redistribution of cognitive resources.

In TTC, awareness serves as a limited but precious resource—used to evaluate new, uncertain, or conflicting choices. Once a decision becomes validated by outcomes and reinforced over time, awareness can step back. What remains is an internalized algorithm: a behavioral routine that is fast, predictable, and efficient—SCBA.

Conditioning as Directed Rewiring

This process—when intentionally guided—is what we call conditioning. Whether in Pavlov’s bell experiment, Skinner’s operant conditioning, or modern behavior modification therapies, the aim is to pair a stimulus with a desirable behavior through repeated exposure and reinforcement.

Conditioning, then, is not simply external programming—it is a rewiring of the decision architecture from the inside out. The subject begins with ABCS: the initial exposure to a stimulus prompts awareness, evaluation, and selection. But as the contingencies become clearer, and as feedback loops tighten, the behavior becomes automatic.

In classical conditioning, the pairing of stimulus and outcome facilitates the prediction of reward or punishment.

In operant conditioning, the behavior itself is modified by its consequence—strengthened through reward or weakened through punishment.

In both forms, the endpoint is the same: behavior that was once tentative becomes reliably triggered by the stimulus alone, with no need for volitional reflection.

From the perspective of TTC, this is not a reduction of mind to reflex—it is evidence of the mind’s ability to optimize its use of awareness. What begins as choice becomes protocol. What begins in flexibility becomes encoded as form.

The Double-Edged Sword of Automation

The transition from  ABCS to  SCBA represents a major cognitive achievement. It reflects the system’s ability to optimize mental bandwidth, allowing awareness to disengage from familiar or repetitive decisions so it can be reserved for more complex, uncertain, or novel situations. But like all evolutionary solutions, automation comes with trade-offs.

Benefits of Automation: Efficiency and Stability

Cognitive Efficiency. Once a behavior is encoded as an SCBA, it requires minimal cognitive effort. This allows awareness to focus on higher-level tasks such as planning, innovation, or moral reasoning, while routine behaviors operate smoothly in the background.

Speed and Responsiveness. Automated behaviors are faster and often more accurate in familiar contexts than deliberated choices. They allow individuals to act swiftly in environments that reward quick, consistent responses (e.g., athletes, emergency responders, or skilled technicians).

Emotional Relief. Repetitive conscious engagement with emotionally charged decisions can be draining. Automating decisions in emotionally neutral or resolved domains provides psychological relief, preventing decision fatigue.

Behavioral Consistency. SCBA provides stability—a structured behavioral identity shaped by one’s past experiences and refined through reinforcement. This helps establish reliable habits, routines, and even social predictability.

Costs of Automation: Rigidity and Blind Spots

Loss of Flexibility. While SCBA is efficient, it is not adaptive in changing or novel environments. Automated behaviors can persist even when they’re no longer beneficial—what was once a useful habit can become an obstacle to growth.

Bypassing Awareness. When behavior becomes conditioned, awareness may not even register the act. This can result in mindless repetition, where individuals act out patterns without fully understanding why, or without reflecting on whether the choice aligns with current goals.

Entrenched Biases and Maladaptive Habits. Conditioning can encode not only helpful routines but also dysfunctional or harmful behaviors (e.g., avoidance responses, compulsions, addictive patterns). Once internalized, these patterns become difficult to change, as they bypass ABCS.

Reduced Sense of Agency. Perhaps most significantly, excessive reliance on SCBA can erode the experience of free will. When many decisions are made below the threshold of awareness, individuals may feel disconnected from their own choices, caught in a loop of behavior that no longer feels authored by the self.

Rethinking Libet’s Experiment: SCBA Misread as ABCS

One of the most influential challenges to the notion of free will emerged from the work of Benjamin Libet (1983), who demonstrated that a brain signal—termed the readiness potential—preceded the subject's reported awareness of intending to move. His conclusion was provocative: if the brain initiates an action before conscious intention arises, then free will must be an illusion.

But from the perspective of TTC, Libet’s interpretation may rest on a category error.

Libet assumed that the act of intention he was measuring corresponded to a conscious, volitional decision—what TTC defines as ABCS. However, closer scrutiny suggests that the experimental setup itself may have favored automation, not volition. Participants were instructed to perform a simple, repetitive movement (e.g., flicking a wrist) at arbitrary moments. With each repetition, the decision to act likely shifted from ABCS toward SCBA—the automated execution of behavior that no longer requires active awareness for initiation.

In such a setup, the awareness of the selected choice naturally lags behind the neural preparatory signal—not because awareness lacks causal power, but because the action has already become conditioned. What Libet measured, then, was not the initiation of a free choice, but rather the byproduct of a learned behavior loop.

TTC clarifies that intention arises from ABCS, but that awareness itself is not synonymous with intention. Rather, awareness initiates the process through intention (i.e., ABCS), and then remains engaged through a series of feedback loops that sustain awareness of the selected choice, its appropriation, and eventual execution. This ongoing engagement of awareness (meta-awareness) is distinct from the initial volitional act—which Libet mistakenly identified as the delayed conscious signal.

In this light, the temporal gap Libet observed—between readiness potential and awareness of the selected choice—simply indicates that the intention (ABCS) was no longer involved in the conditioned behavior, rather than disproving free will. It reflects a misidentification of SCBA as volitional choice.

Therefore, the conclusion that free will is an illusion may stem from a misunderstanding of which stage of decision-making was being observed. Libet captured the outcome of a behavioral circuit that had already been automated. Had his study been designed to track novel, unconditioned decisions—true ABCS engagement—the sequence of neural and conscious events might have looked very different.

Balancing Awareness and Automation

TTC does not present SCBA as a flaw—it is a necessary evolutionary feature. But the theory also highlights the importance of meta-awareness: the ability to occasionally step back and re-engage awareness even in domains dominated by SCBA. This is the key to behavioral change, personal growth, and the reconfiguration of one’s internal algorithms.

Just as awareness seeds the formation of habits, it must also retain the capacity to reclaim them when change is needed. In this way, TTC offers not just an explanation for how we automate our behavior—but a map for how to rewire it.

Future Directions: Investigating the Transition from Awareness to Automation

The TTC provides a novel lens to understand how choices evolve—from deliberate, awareness-based acts (ABCS) to automatic, algorithm-driven routines (SCBA). While philosophical and cognitive frameworks support this model, experimental validation is the next logical step. To empirically observe the shift from ABCS to SCBA, we must design studies that capture this invisible transition zone—the point at which awareness disengages, and behavior becomes internally coded.

One proposed experiment draws from the domain of motor learning and procedural memory could involve the tasks of p[laying music. an experiment to identify the transition point between conscious awareness and automated motor behavior during repetitive musical performance. For example, how fast a short music sheet consisting of repeated note sequences with structured variation, can be considered an automated process in regard to the speed of playing on a digital keyboard to record finger position, keystroke timing, and velocity to show signs of automation such as reaction time per note, accuracy, and inter-key timing as proxies for effort. or using imaging technique showing neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI or EEG) to determine neural correlates of the ABCS→SCBA transition, such as the diminishing activation of prefrontal areas and increased basal ganglia involvement over time.

Conclusion:

The reinterpretation of Libet’s experiment through the lens of the Trilogy Theory of Consciousness reframes not only our understanding of volition but the broader architecture of learning and conditioning. Rather than proving free will to be an illusion, Libet’s findings may have inadvertently measured a behavior already delegated to automation—a case of SCBA mistaken for a conscious act of will. TTC proposes that awareness plays a critical initiating and regulatory role in decision-making, but one that can be gradually bypassed as behaviors are internalized.

By distinguishing between awareness-driven intention (ABCS) and algorithmic automation (SCBA), TTC clarifies the layered nature of cognition—where conscious agency gives rise to habits, and meta-awareness can reclaim or reprogram them. This framework not only resolves the apparent conflict between neuroscience and subjective experience, but also offers a roadmap for intentional behavioral transformation. If awareness can seed automation, it can also revisit it. The mind, though wired by experience, remains rewritable by intention.

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